Against the backdrop of global oil price fluctuations and growing energy security concerns, a technological revolution in oil extraction is taking place deep in the Gobi Desert of western Inner Mongolia, China.
On March 27, a significant breakthrough was achieved in the CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage) pilot project at Bayan Oilfield, PetroChina Huabei Oilfield Company, with successful CO₂ injection into a 5,000-meter deep well. So far, the three pilot areas have injected over 200,000 tons of CO₂, setting several domestic records for the deepest liquid CO₂ injection and deepest injection profile testing.
As one of China's youngest large-scale integrated oilfields, Bayan Oilfield features ultra-deep reservoirs (up to nearly 8,000 meters), high temperature and high pressure. The conventional water flooding only achieves a recovery rate of about 25%.
The technical team innovatively adopted CCUS technology: purified CO₂ is injected underground to reduce crude oil viscosity via miscible characteristics, improving recovery while realizing permanent CO₂ sequestration. To overcome challenges such as high temperature, high pressure and pipeline freezing, the oilfield has developed a CO₂ miscible flooding model for deep high-temperature sandstone reservoirs. The Xinghua 1-305 well group is expected to reach a 40% recovery rate.
This project reduces nearly 400,000 tons of carbon emissions annually, equivalent to the carbon fixation of 2 million trees, boosting energy extraction efficiency while supporting carbon neutrality and energy security.