China Southern Petroleum Exploration and Development, a part of Petrochina (itself a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation) and BP are to work together on a carbon capture, utilisation and storage cluster in Hainan province, southern China.

As Upstream Online reports, China Southern Petroleum Exploration and Development has plans to capture an initial 1 million tonnes per annum of CO₂, which could expand to 10 million tpa in the future. The storage sites would be onshore. BP will bring its experience from the Net Zero Teesside Power project, which is CCUS applied to a gas-fired power plant.

At the signing of an agreement between BP and China Southern Petroleum Exploration and Development, BP CEO Bernard Looney spoke of the challenge of providing low-carbon but secure and affordable energy, saying “That is a complex challenge. We need different fuels including oil and gas. Now we see real momentum behind CCUS.”