How to Secure the Energy Rice Bowl? National Energy Administration Visits Bohai and Shengli Oilfields to Supervise Reserve Growth and Production Increase

Recently, to thoroughly study and implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech during his inspection of the Shengli Oilfield in Dongying, Shandong, to earnestly carry out the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on vigorously increasing oil and gas exploration and development and strengthening unconventional oil and gas resource development, and to push forward the work requirements of the second meeting of the National Energy Commission,Ren Jingdong, Member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Administrator of the National Energy Administration, led a team to Tianjin and Dongying, Shandong,visiting two major oilfields — CNOOC's Qinhuangdao 32-6 Oilfield in the Bohai Oilfield and Sinopec's Shengli Oilfield — tooffshore oil and gas reserve growth and production increase, oil and gas technological innovation, accelerated shale oil development, and green, low-carbon oil and gas developmentand others conducted on-site research and supervision.

Not long ago, General Secretary Xi Jinping inspected the Shengli Oilfield and told petroleum workers: "The rice bowl of energy must be held firmly in our own hands." This deeply inspired petroleum workers nationwide and set new requirements and new hopes for oil and gas work.

the National Energy Administration went in person to the Bohai Oilfield and the Shengli Oilfield to carry out on-site research, inspection and supervision of reserve growth and output increases.Why these two oilfields? What are the key paths and factors for China's oil and gas reserve growth and production increase? What difficulties must be overcome to secure the energy rice bowl?

01. Offshore Growth for Oil and Gas, Intelligence for Offshore Oil and Gas

According to the National Energy Administration's website, the inspection team this time went deep intoCentral Control Room of Qinhuangdao 32-6 Intelligent Oilfield, Bohai Oilfield, CNOOC，to learn about progress in offshore oil and gas technological innovation and intelligent construction, and urged enterprises to focus more on innovation and achieve breakthroughs in key offshore exploration and development technologies.

The Qinhuangdao 32-6 Smart Oilfield (Phase I) project was completed and put into operation on October 15 this year, making it China's first offshore smart oilfield construction project. The project applies information technologies such as cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, 5G and BeiDou to empower the traditional oilfield and achieve process re-engineering, creating a modern, digital and intelligent oilfield of a new type in the Bohai Bay.

Adopting an advanced technology platform, the project deeply integrates information technology with the core business of oil and gas production, giving the 20-year-old Qinhuangdao 32-6 oilfield distinctive intelligent features such as comprehensive perception, overall coordination, scientific decision-making and self-optimization. It will bring a 30% improvement in production efficiency, raising output while cutting operation and maintenance costs by 5-10% and reducing headcount by 20%.

▲ Offshore drone inspection and delivery

Even more noteworthy,With the completion of the Qinhuangdao 32-6 intelligent oilfield as a breakthrough, CNOOC is exploring new paths for intelligent development, accelerating smart oilfield construction and building a "smart brain" for offshore oil and gas exploration and development.

the Qinhuangdao 32-6 smart oilfield, which came into operation this year, will help the Bohai Oilfield raise output to 40 million tonnes; and over the past two years CNOOC's crude output increases accounted for 56% and 83% of China's total crude increment respectively.The trend is increasingly clear: future growth in China's oil and gas output will come from the sea, and offshore production growth will come from intelligent oilfields.

By 2025, CNOOC will invest RMB 2.4 billion to initially complete smart oilfield construction across the whole group. Over the next five years and beyond, China's offshore smart oilfield construction will enter a fast lane. Smart oilfields will add momentum to reserve growth and output increases at offshore oilfields.

02. New Opportunities for Transformation, New Development Goals

At the Shengli Oilfield, the inspection team visited the shale oil and CO2 flooding and Oil Seal laboratory of the Exploration and Development Research Institute, the Fanyeping-1 shale oil pilot test well, the million-tonne-scale CCUS demonstration area in the Gao-89-Fan-142 block and the Lai-113 block,He learned about Shengli Oilfield's progress in increasing and stabilizing crude output, shale oil exploration and development, and clean, low-carbon development, and asked Sinopec Group to increase investment in exploration and development, advance shale oil technology research and pilot tests, save energy, cut consumption and reduce carbon to build a green oil and gas enterprise, and make every effort to protect the ecology of the Yellow River basin.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the Shengli Oilfield. Over the past 60 years, Shengli has gone through three stages: building the oilfield, developing the oilfield and operating the oilfield, with proven geological oil reserves of 5.587 billion tonnes and cumulative crude output of 1.25 billion tonnes. Having passed its first full 60-year cycle, this mature oilfield has again tackled technical challenges this year in shale oil exploration and decarbonization technologies, deepening its commitment to innovation.

Xinhua reported last week that shale oil exploration in the Jiyang depression of the Shengli Oilfield has borne fruit at several locations, with an initial reported 458 million tonnes of predicted geological oil reserves, ready for full exploration and development. By October 28 the Shengli Oilfield had completed four dedicated shale oil exploration wells, among which Fanyeping-1 set a national record for single-well daily shale oil output, peaking at 171 tonnes of oil per day,marking a strategic breakthrough in achieving commercial production of shale oil in the Shengli Oilfield.

In July this year,Shengli Oilfield and Qilu Petrochemical have taken on the joint task of launching China's first million-tonne-scale CCUS project. Covering the three links of carbon capture, utilization and storage, the project will become the country's largest demonstration base for the full CCUS industrial chain once completed, providing an application case for the nationwide scaling-up of CCUS.

The project consists of two parts: CO2 capture at Qilu Petrochemical and CO2 flooding and Oil Seal at Shengli Oilfield. CO2 captured by Qilu Petrochemical is transported to Shengli Oilfield for flooding and Oil Seal, realizing integrated CO2 capture, flooding and Oil Seal — locking carbon dioxide underground and driving the oil out.

the Shengli Oilfield will, atCarbon Utilization and Storage Segment, using the principle that supercritical CO2 readily mixes with crude oil, build 10 unattended gas injection stations in the Zhengli zhuang oilfield to inject CO2 into 73 nearby wells.Over the next 15 years, an estimated 10.68 million tons of CO2 could be injected cumulatively, increasing oil production by 2.965 million tons.

The 60-year-old Shengli Oilfield has this year newly defined new energy as an important strategic emerging industry for the oilfield,It set new goals for the Shengli Oilfield: to become a clean energy producer in oil and gas production, an integrated energy management service provider, and a technology solutions provider in decarbonization. and will take on new life through unremitting technological innovation.

According to the National Energy Administration website, since the start of this year the NEA has conducted on-site research and supervision in major oil and gas producing areas including Xinjiang, Heilongjiang and Shaanxi on reserve growth, production increase and energy supply assurance. The NEA will continue this work, organizing local governments and enterprises to steadily increase and stabilize domestic crude oil output and rapidly raise natural gas output, sparing no effort to meet core oil and gas demand and ensure energy supply through this winter and next spring.