The CCUS project of Shengli Oilfield consumes "carbon" and spits out "oil", which is equivalent to planting 9 million trees per year.
2024-08-25
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China Youth Daily·China Youth Network Intern Reporter Chen Xiao Reporter Ma Yuping
"Injecting carbon dioxide into underground oil reservoirs can effectively improve the fluidity of crude oil, thereby increasing oil production. Moreover, carbon dioxide can be permanently retained underground to achieve carbon reduction and carbon fixation." Zhang Dong, manager of the gas drive laboratory of Shengli Oilfield Exploration and Development Research Institute, said that compared with previous water drives, using carbon dioxide to drive oil is more efficient and less costly.
The scientific name of this oil recovery technology is carbon dioxide capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology, which refers to the capture and purification of carbon dioxide emitted from industrial production and other processes, and then put it into new production processes for reuse and storage. It is an emerging technology for low-carbon and efficient development of fossil energy.
Carbon emissions used to be the biggest headache for the oil industry. Today, this gas that causes global warming has become a hot topic to boost oil production and promote green and low-carbon energy transformation.
On August 23, a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Network came to the CO2 Station 1 in Lai 113 Block of Shengli Oilfield. The two five- to six-meter-high white storage tanks placed horizontally on the ground attracted attention.
The CO2 Station 1 of Lai 113 Block of Shengli Oilfield is equipped with two gas storage tanks dedicated to CCUS projects, each of which can store 50 tons of CO2. Photo by Chen Xiao, trainee reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network
"This is a special gas storage tank for our CCUS project, which can store 100 tons of carbon dioxide." Liu Tong, a staff member of Shengli Oilfield Gas Injection Technical Service Center, introduced that the station is one of the gas injection stations of my country's first million-ton CCUS project, Sinopec's "Qilu Petrochemical-Shengli Oilfield Million-ton CCUS Project".
It is understood that Shengli Oilfield has applied CCUS technology in 13 blocks, including Lai 113 block, and has injected and stored more than 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide, with an average single-well output increase of 36.8%. The annual reduction of carbon dioxide emissions is about 1 million tons, which is equivalent to planting nearly 9 million trees every year and stopping the driving of nearly 600,000 economy cars for one year.
The achievement of these results is inseparable from the technical research and technological innovation of several generations of scientific researchers in Shengli Oilfield.
"Underground oil does not flow freely like rivers. Some low-permeability oil reservoirs are stored in rock cracks thousands of meters underground, making them difficult to exploit." Cheng Ziyan, manager of the Reservoir Evaluation Research Laboratory of Shengli Oilfield Exploration and Development Research Institute, said that low-permeability oil reservoirs are a "hard bone" that must be chewed in oilfield development and are of great significance to securing the energy rice bowl.
To extract oil, water is often used to drive it, but the reservoir rock of low-permeability oil reservoirs is extremely dense and hard. Under certain conditions, water cannot be injected at all. In addition, for areas with complex oil reservoirs such as Lai 113 Block, water drive not only has poor benefits, but also low recovery rate.
Therefore, researchers have focused on a gas that can penetrate any pore - carbon dioxide. According to Cheng Ziyan, supercritical carbon dioxide has a small molecular structure and low viscosity, making it easier for it to enter the pores of low-permeability rocks. If it can be mixed with crude oil to form a liquid and increase the fluidity of crude oil, the crude oil that was originally hiding in the pores can be "revealed", thereby increasing crude oil production.
Theoretically, CO2 flooding is effective, but in practice, it is difficult to overcome each difficulty. Shengli Oilfield researchers began to tackle this technology in 1967. Through the continuous efforts of several generations, they have overcome the difficulties of CO2 high-pressure miscible flooding and storage technology, solved the technical bottlenecks of low-permeability reservoirs with high miscibility and high injection pressure; innovated the million-ton and 100-kilometer carbon dioxide dense-phase pipeline transportation technology, broke through the technical barriers of pipeline transportation phase control, pipeline corrosion protection and leakage detection; and developed the full-process closed treatment and environmental monitoring technology of produced fluid, effectively solving the problem of closed decarbonization of low-temperature carbon-containing produced fluid.
Shengli Oilfield is still exploring green and low-carbon development. At present, Shengli Oilfield is studying and promoting low-concentration carbon dioxide capture projects. The "Shengli Power Plant Million Ton CCUS Project" is the second million-ton CCUS project in the oilfield and is undergoing feasibility study. The development of new quality productivity marked by greening will have great potential.
Source: China Youth Daily Client
