CNOOC Ltd, a Chinese state-owned oil and gas firm, has recently completed the first offshore carbon capture and storage project in the country. The project is designed to bury carbon dioxide permanently in the seabed.

According to credible sources, CNOOC began the project construction last September. Also, it would eventually confiscate approximately 1.46 million tonnes of CO2 in 800-metre-deep seabed reservoirs.

It has been mentioned that the stored carbon dioxide equals planting 14 million trees or taking around 1 million cars off the road.

The project is situated at the CNOOC's Enping Oilfield in the Pearl River, about 200 km (124 miles) from Shenzhen. It is expected to stock CO2 released during the oil extraction process.

Last year, the International Energy Agency stated that utilities built around the globe now have the capacity to store more than 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.

As per official reports, CCUS (Carbon capture, utilization, and storage) empowers the emission-intensive industries like cement, oil and gas and power to avert climate-warming CO2 from entering the atmosphere

China has recognized CCUS as a vital part of efforts to become carbon neutral by 2060. However, it has built several demonstration projects where the execution of technology has been restricted so far.

An assessment report issued earlier this year by the Ministry of Science and Technology and other government bodies stated that the running and engineering costs of CCUS remain high, and government support has still been insufficient.

The report noted that the future of theoretical emission reduction potential of CCUS technology is massive but owing to the technology’s level of maturity and financial feasibility, it is difficult to exploit.

For the record, offshore CCUS have been deployed already in the United States and Norway, with apprehended CO2 supplied to developers for inoculating in the oil fields to aid boost recovery rates.

Source Credit - https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/oil-and-gas/chinas-cnooc-completes-first-offshore-carbon-capture-site/92220118