China

China Daily | English | News | Dec. 12, 2025 | Climate Change

China is advancing its carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology to reconcile sustained economic growth with its goal of carbon neutrality by 2060. Facing an energy system heavily reliant on coal and heavy industry, the government and state-owned energy companies are shifting from pilot projects to large-scale industrial CCUS clusters. Beijing has incorporated CCUS into its national 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) and updated its technology roadmap, stressing CCUS as essential for the low-carbon use of fossil fuels and overall carbon neutrality efforts.

The National Energy Administration (NEA) has promoted CCUS to transition from experimental stages to industrial demonstration and scaled production through enhanced policy support and technological innovation. The oil and gas sector is operating over 90 CCUS projects, including more than 10 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) initiatives, with annual CO2 injection reaching 4 million tons. As of the end of 2024, China had 126 planned or operational CCUS projects, capable of capturing 6 million tons of CO2 annually, led by energy conglomerates.

Sinopec operates the first million-ton scale CCUS project at its Qilu petrochemical plant, capturing 1 million tons of CO2 per year and injecting it for EOR at the Shengli oilfield. This project provides key engineering experience to support nationwide CCUS expansion. Sinopec views CCUS as critical to upgrading traditional industries and fostering new productive forces, and it aims to collaborate internationally on technology breakthroughs and cluster development. Meanwhile, China National Petroleum Corporation is developing major CCUS hubs in Heilongjiang, Gansu, and Tianjin, integrating emissions from nearby industrial sources.

Globally, CCUS is gaining momentum as an important tool in the energy transition. Although much captured CO2 is currently used for EOR, Chinese state firms are increasingly exploring geological storage in deep saline aquifers, especially near coastal regions, to secure long-term carbon sequestration.

开源模式重构产业竞争格局

Guangming Daily | Local Language | News | Dec. 12, 2025 | UndeterminedTech Development/Adoption

As of the end of 2024, China's active open source projects have surpassed 3 million with 2.27 million active developers, creating a large and diverse talent pool. The openEuler community, nurtured by the OpenAtom Open Source Foundation, boasts over 2,100 member organizations, 23,000 global contributors, and over 5.5 million users. By the end of 2025, openEuler OS installations are expected to exceed 16 million, making it a leading digital intelligence platform across key Chinese industries such as telecommunications, government, finance, and energy.

Open source technology is recognized as a key driver of technological innovation and high-quality development, particularly in the AI era with large models. China leads in open source large AI models, including Qwen and DeepSeek, while open hardware architectures like RISC-V are rapidly advancing and expected to enable next-generation AI computing power, fueling China’s independent innovation beyond Moore's Law.

Inspur General Software highlights the maturity of the open source ecosystem, with projects like HarmonyOS and openEuler achieving significant scale and wide industry adoption in areas such as finance and aerospace. The recent open sourcing of 360 Group’s FG-CLIP2 model, which outperformed global tech giants in public AI benchmarks, exemplifies China’s competitive progress in AI foundational models.

The UBML open source project under Inspur supports low-code development by lowering barriers for SMEs to create customized applications, promoting efficient innovation circulation across the industry. Beijing Yizhuang has established a national-level open source ecosystem with strong government support through policies and initiatives like the AI open source root community “Moli Ark,” which hosts thousands of models and datasets to enhance innovation impact globally.

The OpenAtom Foundation advances open source through project incubation, talent development, cultural promotion, and community standardization. Experts project open source will continue to fuel China’s collaborative innovation in AI, chip design, and industrial ecosystems, contributing to global digital transformation. The future evolution of open source communities will hinge on integrating large model capabilities to create intelligent development ecosystems emphasizing collaboration, value feedback, and monetization through commercial applications.

老油田书写能源新答卷

Guangming Daily | Local Language | News | Dec. 12, 2025 | UndeterminedEnergy Prices

On December 3, 2025, the Gulong continental shale oil demonstration area in Daqing surpassed an annual production of one million tons, marking a significant milestone in the large-scale, efficient exploitation of shale oil. The development started in 2021 with a production of 15,000 tons, steadily increasing each year through technical breakthroughs and independent innovation, positioning Gulong shale oil as a strategic resource to enhance China's national energy security.

Daqing Oilfield overcame major challenges unique to Gulong shale oil, such as high clay content and complex geological characteristics that made conventional fracturing methods ineffective. Initial attempts to apply North American fracturing technology failed, leading the team to develop their own exclusive fracturing process tailored to local conditions. This indigenous process, which includes using higher-quality desert quartz sand, has enabled stable production and improved efficiency while controlling costs.

The development of Gulong shale oil embodies the enduring "Daqing spirit" of perseverance and innovation, with drilling teams setting regional records despite difficult strata. Single wells have achieved notable stable outputs, and year-one production declines have been more favorable than those in North America. The project plans to expand beyond the current Q9 oil layer to deeper reserves with three-dimensional multi-layer fracturing, addressing complex engineering challenges for coordinated fracture network development.

Looking forward, Daqing Oilfield aims to increase annual shale oil production to 3 million tons by the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan and 5 million tons by the end of the 16th Five-Year Plan. Continued technological breakthroughs and resource development will support the goal of building a century-old oilfield and contributing to China's energy security. The company emphasizes unwavering dedication to overcoming technical bottlenecks and maximizing resource potential as part of its national mission.