On September 12, the world's inaugural tower-type photothermal substitution demonstration project, specifically designed for ultra-heavy oil extraction, officially commenced operations in the Fengcheng Oilfield operation zone, situated within Karamay City, Xinjiang, at the Xinjiang Oilfield. This milestone achievement signifies a substantial technological leap forward in China's pursuit of green and low-carbon transformation within the oil and gas development sector.

The project sprawls across an expansive 150,000-square-meter area, featuring a light-collecting surface that spans 51,500 square meters. Leveraging the power of 23,712 compact heliostats, the system ingeniously redirects sunlight onto a heat absorber perched atop a solar tower. This process generates high-temperature steam, which is subsequently injected underground. Additionally, the project incorporates an innovative steam chamber heat storage technology.

Its compact heliostat technology boasts an impressive tracking accuracy of up to 1.2 milliradians, coupled with a mirror reflectance efficiency that surpasses 95%, both of which stand at the forefront of international standards.

At present, the global thermal recovery of heavy oil is plagued by excessive energy consumption and substantial carbon emissions. The thermal recovery operations at the Fengcheng Oilfield alone consume significant quantities of natural gas and raw coal on an annual basis. However, this groundbreaking project is capable of producing 52,000 tons of zero-carbon superheated steam each year, effectively replacing nearly 3.92 million cubic meters of natural gas and thus achieving zero carbon emissions in the thermal recovery of heavy oil.