The National Energy Administration recently issued the Action Plan for Accelerating the Integrated Development of Oil and Gas Exploration and Development and New Energy (2023-2025) (Action Plan), which proposes to vigorously promote the integrated development of oil and gas exploration and development and new energy, and actively expand the scale of oil and gas enterprises’ development and utilization of green electricity.
By 2025, the cumulative output of crude oil will be increased by more than 2 million tons through low-cost green electricity supported oxygen reduction air flooding, carbon dioxide flooding, heavy oil thermal recovery, electric heating assistance, and other tertiary oil recovery methods; Accelerate the development and utilization of geothermal, wind, and solar energy resources, actively promote an environmentally friendly, energy-saving, emission reduction, and multi-energy integration oil and gas production system, and strive to create “low-carbon” and “zero carbon” oil and gas fields, according to the Action Plan.
The Action Plan also noted that during the 14th Five Year Plan period, it is imperative to comprehensively promote the safety and green development of oil and gas supply, and accelerate the green and low-carbon transformation of the industry on the basis of stabilizing oil and gas growth and improving the supply capacity of oil and gas resources.
In particular, the country’s old oil regions have gradually entered the late stage of development, facing problems such as insufficient replacement of oil and gas resources, difficulties in stabilizing production, and high production costs. It is necessary to rely on the oil regions and surrounding resources, strengthen the development and utilization of new energy, new materials, and new business based on the oil and gas industry, and promote the transformation and development of traditional oil and gas production to comprehensive energy development and utilization and new material manufacturing bases.
In addition, the Action Plan proposes to adhere to the principle of ecological priority, adapting measures to local conditions, and creating diversified and integrated development, primarily focusing on local and nearby consumption at the initial stage, vigorously promote wind and photovoltaic power generation in onshore oil and gas mining areas and surrounding areas. People in charge also need to coordinate the promotion of offshore wind power and oil and gas exploration and development, accelerate the improvement of the development, utilization, and storage capacity of new energy in the upstream of oil and gas, and actively promote the demonstration construction of green oil and gas fields.
The competent energy departments at all levels should increase their support and give priority to new energy projects such as solar, wind, hydrogen, and geothermal energy, which are clean alternatives for oil and gas exploration and development.
At the same time, efforts should be made to tackle key technological innovations in the integration of oil and gas exploration and development with new energy. Emphasis will be placed on promoting low-cost solar photothermal utilization, oil and gas field energy storage (electricity and heat) technology, distributed microgrid, and integrated energy intelligent control supporting oil and gas production capacity construction projects. Improve the accuracy of forecasting wind and solar energy resources and forecasting the power of wind and photovoltaic power generation, improve the ability of wind and solar to adapt to power system disturbances, and support the smooth operation of oil and gas production, stated in the Action Plan.
