Advances in North American CCUS-EOR Technology and Implications for China’s Development

CCUS-EOR combines emission reduction with economic benefits, making it one of the key technologies for addressing global climate change. Addressing the lack of systematic comparative studies on the differences in geological endowments and engineering conditions between China and North America in existing literature, this paper systematically reviews the progress of North American CO2-EOR in areas such as gas source structure transformation, capture technologies, and pipeline network construction, based on a self-constructed database of typical projects. It then conducts a quantitative comparative analysis of typical projects in China and the United States from three dimensions: reservoir geological endowment, gas source composition, and infrastructure. The study reveals that the advancement of U.S. CO2-EOR projects benefits from increasing industrial CO2 supply and the construction of cross-regional pipeline networks. Comparative analysis indicates that North American projects primarily feature miscible displacement in medium-to-low temperature and light oil reservoirs. This contrasts fundamentally with the characteristics of China’s continental reservoirs, which exhibit “strong heterogeneity, high viscosity, and high minimum miscibility pressure (MMP)”. Currently, China’s CCUS-EOR is transitioning from engineering demonstration to commercial application. However, gaps persist compared to more mature international systems in areas such as low-concentration CO2 capture, pipeline network construction for source-sink matching, and suitability for continental reservoir EOR. Moving forward, China can draw on U.S. CCUS-EOR development experience, accelerate research on relevant technologies tailored to its continental reservoir characteristics, and establish a differentiated whole-industry-chain CCUS-EOR technology system.