The China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, better known as Sinopec, has begun work on a project that aims to capture up to 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from industrial processes.
The "megaton carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project", will become China’s largest whole-industrial-chain carbon capture project, and will create a template for the large-scale development of carbon capture throughout the country.
The project will capture carbon released by industrial processes, purify it, liquify it and inject it into the Shengli oilfield near the Yellow River delta, the second largest in China. This will improve the liquidity of the field’s crude oil, and increase the amount that can be recovered from it. It will also sequester a certain amount of the carbon in former oil-bearing rock strata. Â
- A video explaining the scheme’s operation can be seen here:
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The project is expected to begin by the end of the year. Sinopec describes it as a milestone in the development of the carbon capture industry, and a contributor to China’s plan to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.
The company says in its press statement: "Studies have shown that CCUS will neutralize China’s 1 billion tons of carbon emissions in the future, effectively promoting the purification of fossil energy, the scaled development of clean energy and low-carbon production."
Zhang Yuzhuo, chairman of Sinopec, added: "According to the International Energy Agency, CCUS will contribute about 14% of carbon dioxide emissions reduction by 2050 … Sinopec will research and establish an R&D centre to advance a series of core technologies."
Sinopec says the impact of the project will be equivalent to planting nearly 9 million trees and shutting down 600,000 fossil fuel cars.
If all goes well, Sinopec aims to build a similar project in the next five years.
Image: Sinopec is planning to build a research and development centre to develop carbon capture and use technologies (Sinopec)
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