Chinese oil company Sinopec announced on 29 Aug that it has started operating the country’s largest CCUS plant in east China and has plans to develop two more, reported Reuters.

The new CCUS project captures that was built just over a year ago, captures CO2 from Sinopec’s refinery producing hydrogen in eastern Shandong province. The CO2 is then injected into 73 oil wells in Shengli oilfield. 

The state-owned oil firm projects 10.68 million tonnes of carbon dioxide will be injected into oilfields over the next 15 years, potentially increasing oil yields by approximately 3 million tonnes. 

The CO2 from the Qilu refinery is transported by trucks to the oilfield, but Sinopec aims to build a pipeline by year-end to transfer CO2, which will be new to China. 

“While China’s CCUS remains at an experimental stage, it’s on a par with the levels of global peers, although lagging in some key technological know-how,” Sinopec stated in a press release.

Sinopec is studying starting a CCUS research centre by 2025, focusing on developing innovations like combining CCUS with wind and solar power or with hydrogen power and biomass. 

The company which captures more than 1.52 million tonnes of carbon dioxide last year, plans to build two more pilot projects in nearby Huadong and Jiangsu oilfields.