A preliminary assessment on CO2 storage capacity in the Pearl River Mouth Basin offshore Guangdong, China

Guangdong has China's highest GDP of any province and actively advocates low-carbon development. At present, Guangdong's low-carbon roadmap emphasizes the adjustment of industrial structure, increased energy saving and efficiency, and renewable and nuclear energy, while CCS is not featured. This is partially due to the geographical gap in the existing body of research on CCS in China, as to date no substantial research on CCS has taken place in the regions south of the Yangtze River, including Guangdong.This paper presents the partial outcome of the first CCS-related research in Guangdong, which is aiming for a preliminary assessment on the effective CO2 storage capacity in the Pearl River Mouth Basin (PRMB) offshore Guangdong. As the storage capacity onshore Guangdong is limited as shown by a parallel study, the offshore sedimentary basins deserve particular attention. The PRMB is the largest sedimentary basin in the passive margin of the northern South China Sea, with a total area of nearly 200 000 km2 and maximum sediment thickness of over 14 km. Based on published data, geological conditions and parameters for CO2 storage are analyzed, volumes of potential formations are calculated on a GIS platform, and the storage capacity is calculated according to CSLF and USDOE formulations. The estimated effective storage capacity is 308 Gt in deep saline formations, including 0.06 Gt in oil and gas fields. This capacity is sufficiently large for storaging the CO2 emitted from the major point sources in Guangdong in many decades. Promising areas are suggested for further investigations.