Regular Article

Evaluation of CO₂ enhanced oil recovery and CO₂ storage potential in oil reservoirs of petroliferous sedimentary basin, China

¹ Oil Production Technology Institute, Dagang Oilfield Company, CNPC, Tianjin 300280, China
² College of Mining Engineering, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan, Hebei 063210, China
³ School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
⁴ College of Safety Science and Engineering, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin 300300, China
⁵ Dagang Oilfield Company, No. 5 Oil Production Plant, PetroChina, Tianjin 300280, China

^* Corresponding author: fy_wang@cauc.edu.cn

Received: 14 February 2022
Accepted: 22 November 2022

Abstract

Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) technology has emerged as the bottom-line technology for achieving carbon neutrality goals in China. The development of Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery (CO₂-EOR) not only increases revenue for high-investment CCUS projects but also enables permanent CO₂ storage in the oil reservoir. However, the basin is used as the research object to evaluate the CO₂ storage potential of the oil reservoir. The evaluation results are inaccurate and unable to support the implementation of later CCUS projects. Here, more accurate oil reservoir data is employed as the evaluation object. It is the first time at the national level to screen oil reservoirs to distinguish between CO₂ miscible and immiscible, and evaluate the potential of CO₂-EOR and CO₂ storage in the reservoir. The research results show a total of 2570 suitable oil reservoirs in 4386 candidate oil reservoirs nationwide. About 1.26 billion tons of additional crude oil can be produced by CO₂-EOR technology. This includes approximately 580 million tons of additional oil from CO₂ miscible flooding and 680 million tons from CO₂ immiscible flooding. The study further refines the CO₂ geological utilization data and provides a theoretical basis for CCUS project site selection in China.