Fertilizer plants that "capture" carbon dioxide
-- Visiting the mainland's first megaton CCUS project
Workers' Daily-China Workers' Network reporter Liu Jinnong Zhou Yi
Editor's note: Green development is an intrinsic requirement for new quality productivity, and it is also the background color of high-quality development. Promoting green development and achieving the goals of carbon neutrality and carbon peaking are inseparable from the breakthrough and application of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and other technologies. In recent years, some enterprises in mainland China, especially large state-owned enterprises, have seized the opportunity of green development to separate carbon dioxide from industrial production, energy use or the atmosphere, and use it or inject it into the ground for storage to achieve permanent emission reduction. In this process, some new industries and new forms of business have been born, which are reported in this group of manuscripts, so please pay attention.
On May 15, the reporter walked into the Qilu Petrochemical No. 2 Fertilizer Plant in Zibo, Shandong Province, and saw a set of rectangular silver devices with a height of 30 meters and intricate pipe twists and turns shining in the sun, which was shocking. In the tank farm on the side, there are two spherical tanks with a height of 25 meters and a storage capacity of 4,000 cubic meters. "This is the core 'plant' of the mainland's first megaton CCUS (carbon capture, utilization and storage) project, and it is also the starting point of Qilu Petrochemical-Shengli Oilfield CCUS project." Pointing to the tall "plant" in operation, Gao Peng, Secretary of the Party Committee of Qilu Petrochemical Second Fertilizer Plant, said.
Founded in 1974, after more than 40 years of construction and development, the fertilizer plant has become a comprehensive petrochemical enterprise with 5 sets of large-scale units, the main products are gasified hydrogen, butanol, octanol, liquid carbon dioxide and other products.
"The carbon dioxide captured here is the tail gas produced by the normal production of our plant, which is cooled and compressed, and the liquid purity after recovery and purification reaches more than 99%, and then it is transported to Shengli Oilfield for utilization and storage." Gao Peng said.
"Our CCUS project started construction on July 5, 2021, and it accelerated as soon as it started. The owner, the construction party, the supervision party and other coordinated operations to overcome the dual impact of the epidemic and winter construction difficulties, under the premise of ensuring safety and quality, break the routine, adopt a two-shift mode around the clock, and make every effort to promote the construction work...... "Recalling the scene at that time, Zheng Guanfeng, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Qilu Petrochemical Second Fertilizer Plant, still said with some excitement that the two "Jumbo" spherical tanks belong to the cryogenic process, and each tank is welded by 62 spherical skins, with a thickness of 49 mm of spherical steel plates. The total length of the annular seam is about 660 meters, and nearly 30 welders are required to work at the same time. In order to ensure the construction progress, the pass rate of one welding must reach more than 98%.
After rushing work, on January 29, 2022, the project was completed by CCCC. On April 3 of that year, the project was successfully started up and produced qualified products, and the liquid carbon dioxide captured and purified was transported by car to Shengli Oilfield and injected into the underground oil displacement for storage.
"After the project is put into operation, it can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1 million tons per year, which is equivalent to planting nearly 9 million trees, nearly 600,000 economic cars will be stopped for one year, and it is expected to increase crude oil production by 2.965 million tons in the next 15 years." Gao Peng said that this is currently the largest demonstration base and benchmark project of the whole CCUS industry chain in China, which has a significant demonstration effect on the large-scale development of CCUS in the mainland, and is of great significance for building an "artificial carbon cycle" model and improving the carbon emission reduction capacity of the mainland.
"After the device was put into operation, in order to ensure its safe, stable and economic operation, our factory has carried out a number of technological innovations through model worker studios and small index labor competitions." Zheng Guanfeng said that at first, the anti-surge system of the carbon dioxide compressor had the problem of uneconomical operation, but after cooperating with several companies in the industry to optimize, we closed the anti-surge valve as small as possible to ensure better energy saving effect; In view of the frequent clogging of the filter caused by the use of carbon dioxide raw materials for dry gas sealing in the carbon dioxide compressor, we introduced a stream of pure carbon dioxide from the liquefaction purification system as the dry gas sealing gas to replace nitrogen and reduce nitrogen consumption......
"After a series of equipment modifications and process optimization, since 2023, this unit has been running better and better, and the quality and efficiency of carbon capture have been continuously improved, winning unanimous praise from peers in the industry." Gao Peng said that after the completion of the project, a total of thousands of domestic and foreign officials, business leaders, and industry experts have come to visit and study.
Shengli Oilfield CCUS Project——
Achieve a win-win situation of increasing oil production and reducing carbon emissions
Workers' Daily-China Workers' Network reporter Zhou Yi Liu Jinnong
The picture shows the production site of the injection station in Lai 113 block of Shengli Oilfield. Photo by Liu Tong
On May 16, in order to fully understand the carbon dioxide transportation, use and storage of the mainland's first million-ton CCUS project, the reporter came to the Lai 113 block of Shengli Oilfield and saw the neat asphalt road, orderly greening facilities, and two white storage tanks five or six meters high and placed horizontally on the ground.
"This is a dedicated gas tank for our CCUS project, which can store 100 tons of carbon dioxide." Fan Shaowei, director of the carbon dioxide project department of the carbon dioxide project department of Shengli Oilfield Gas Injection Technology Service Center, said that CCUS can achieve a win-win situation of oil production increase and carbon emission reduction, and is an advanced technology for low-carbon and efficient development of fossil energy. "Up to now, more than 46,000 tons of carbon dioxide have been injected into our Lai 113 block, and the production of the effective oil well has increased by 30%, and the corresponding oil well has achieved an increase in production capacity, a decrease in water cut, and an increase in production, and ensured safe and green production."
"We use the CO2 that comes in to extract crude oil deep in the ground. This technology belongs to the category of tertiary oil recovery, which has the characteristics of high oil displacement efficiency, low oil recovery cost and high storage rate. Zhang Chuanbao, a senior expert in the development of CCUS reservoirs in the oilfield of Shengli Oilfield Exploration and Development Research Institute, said. It is understood that including the Lai 113 block, Shengli Oilfield has applied CCUS technology in 13 blocks, with a total of more than 100 tons of carbon dioxide injected and sequestered, and the average single well production increased by 36.8%.
These achievements are inseparable from the technological breakthroughs and scientific and technological innovations of the scientific and technical personnel of Shengli Oilfield.
On July 11, 2023, the mainland's first high-pressure and room-temperature dense phase carbon dioxide transmission pipeline project with a million-ton transportation scale, 100-kilometer transportation distance and 100-kilogram transportation pressure - Qilu Petrochemical-Shengli Oilfield million-ton CCUS project carbon dioxide transmission pipeline was put into operation.
According to Zhang Dong, secretary of the Party branch of the gas flooding laboratory of the Shengli Oilfield Exploration and Development Research Institute, compared with oil pipelines, the design, construction and safe transportation of carbon dioxide transmission pipelines are more difficult. The first step in this project was to solve the challenge of carbon dioxide phase control. To this end, after many experiments, the scientific and technological personnel have successfully overcome a number of core technologies, and developed the first domestic cryogenic liquid phase carbon dioxide pipeline centrifugal booster pump and high-efficiency carbon dioxide dense phase normal temperature high-pressure reciprocating injection pump. The CO2 pipeline is designed for a pressure of 12 megapascals, which is equivalent to an area the size of a fingernail and carries a weight of 120 kilograms.
Carbon dioxide in the injection and production wellbore is corrosive when it encounters water to form carbonic acid. After many tests, the engineering and technical personnel used corrosion-resistant stainless steel materials as the key components, and added sustained-release agents to the wellbore. According to reports, the corrosion rate before addition reached one or two millimeters a year, and decreased to 0.03 millimeters after adding sustained-release agent, which effectively prevented the corrosion of carbon dioxide on the injection and production string.
In the process of actual utilization of carbon dioxide, Shengli Oilfield has also overcome many problems such as pipeline digital twin technology, extremely complex geological conditions, and carbon dioxide recovery and utilization in the produced liquid, and strengthened the real-time monitoring of the surface, soil, atmosphere and water, and formulated various emergency plans to ensure safe production and foolproof.
Wang Jie, director of reservoir engineering of the CCUS project department of Shengli Oilfield, said that through the use of CCUS technology, crude oil production has been greatly improved, considerable economic benefits have been obtained, and national energy security has been guaranteed. At the same time, a large amount of carbon dioxide is sequestered, and huge social and environmental benefits are obtained. Qilu Petrochemical - Shengli Oilfield million-ton CCUS demonstration project is expected to store tens of millions of tons of carbon dioxide and increase oil production by 3 million tons in 15 years.
At present, Shengli Oilfield is studying and promoting low-concentration carbon dioxide capture projects. As the second million-ton CCUS project in the oilfield, the "Shengli Power Plant Million Ton CCUS Project" is undergoing feasibility study, and the development of new quality productivity marked by greening in the oilfield is promising.
It covers many scenarios such as coal-fired gas power generation, cement, and chemical industry
The commercial application of carbon capture is expected in the future
Workers' Daily-China Workers' Network reporter Li Guo
"This is a carbon dioxide capture device independently developed by the company, which captures 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, which can capture the carbon dioxide produced in the industrial process and then store or use it." On May 31, the person in charge of the Shuanghuai Power Plant in Hechuan, Chongqing, pointed to the towering steel pipe column and told reporters that this device is the first 10,000-ton coal-fired and gas-fired test platform established by Yuanda Environmental Protection in China, which solves the problems of high heat consumption and large absorbent loss in the flue gas carbon capture process of conventional technology in the industry.
"In the production process, the company can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 90% through this device, and the purity of liquid carbon dioxide obtained by capture and treatment can reach 99.9%, which is a veritable 'fast carbon capture'." The person in charge said that the captured carbon dioxide can be used in agricultural production, food processing, oil extraction and other fields, and can also be used to make gas fertilizer, improve plant photosynthesis, and improve crop yields.
"Many people think of oil underground as a river or a lake, but most of it is hidden in the pores and crevices of rocks. In order to extract oil, it is generally driven by water. In some low-permeability and extra-low-permeability reservoirs, the rocks are like iron plates, and there is no way for water to enter them. Industry experts said that the use of carbon dioxide to flood oil and store it at the same time is a relatively mature technology in the mainland.
It is understood that the CCUS project in mainland China has covered coal-fired power plants, gas-fired power plants, cement kilns, chemical plants, natural gas processing and other scenarios. The largest carbon capture project in Xinjiang is a giant CCUS project with a capacity of 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. The China Geological Survey has conducted a preliminary assessment of the geological storage potential of carbon dioxide in mainland waters, and confirmed that the geological storage potential of carbon dioxide in mainland waters is huge, and the basin-level storage potential is predicted to reach 2.58 trillion tons.
CCUS technology not only reduces emissions, but also has good social benefits. According to a new study by the Oil & Gas Climate Initiative, the deployment of CCUS could create between 4 million and 12 million cumulative jobs by 2050. Coupled with the fact that the mainland is the world's largest producer of coal, steel, and cement, the use of CCUS technology can avoid the high stranding costs of premature retirement of large amounts of infrastructure under carbon constraints. It is estimated that the scale of stranded coal power assets in mainland China could be as high as 3.08 trillion yuan to 7.2 trillion yuan.
People from all walks of life have high hopes for the future development of CCUS, and have made suggestions and suggestions. Mo Yuanming, a researcher at the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle Collaborative Development Center of Chongqing Technology and Business University, believes that the legal and regulatory system should be improved at the national level, and the CCUS industry norms, institutional and regulatory framework systems, as well as a scientific and reasonable construction, operation, supervision, and termination standard system should be formulated.
At present, the mainland government and many enterprises are working together to accelerate the pace of commercial application of CCUS, but the industry still needs to overcome the cost problem. "For some private enterprises, with the current technical conditions, it is more expensive to continue to capture carbon dioxide. Although companies can earn some income from selling carbon allowances, it is difficult to break even. Some industry experts said that at present, the cost of CCUS per ton of carbon ranges from 105 yuan to 600 yuan, plus transportation, storage and utilization, the cost of comprehensive treatment is higher. In contrast, the price of allowances in the carbon market is around 70 yuan/tonne, and the cost of CCUS needs to be further reduced.
In this regard, experts suggest that we should explore the formulation of CCUS tax incentives and subsidy incentives suitable for the carbon neutrality goal of the mainland, and explore the organic combination of the government and the market CCUS commercial investment and financing mechanism. Include CCUS in the catalogue of industrial and technological development, and actively use green finance, climate bonds, low-carbon funds and other means to support the demonstration and innovation of CCUS projects.
Source: China Workers' Daily