Xi Zhang

The global energy sector is undergoing a fundamental transition toward low-carbon and renewable energy systems to address climate change challenges. As the world's largest energy consumer and carbon emitter, China has established ambitious carbon neutrality targets, compelling its oil and gas industry to accelerate clean energy transitions. Confronting the inherent conflict between traditional oil and gas development and green transformation, PetroChina Tarim Oilfield Company has developed an innovative management-technology-production integrated approach.  In terms of management integration, a specialized management institution for new energy and carbon assets was established, creating a four-level “strategy-management-execution-technology” linkage mechanism.  This framework introduced innovative dual-dimensional assessment standards that integrate oil/gas production with new energy development, ensuring deeper alignment between low-carbon objectives and operational tasks. In the aspect of technological integration, a technical system of energy consumption potential exploration - energy conservation and consumption reduction - clean energy substitution has been constructed, and new green and low-carbon technologies for the energy systems of oil and gas fields have been conquered. The production integration initiative implements unified planning and construction of three core networks, while optimizing regional collaborative allocation mechanisms and deploying intelligent regulation platforms. This establishes an integrated production and energy supply system that dynamically matches renewable energy inputs with hydrocarbon production demands, creating a closed-loop “clean supply-efficient use-intelligent control” ecosystem. The practice indicates that this mode has increased the oil and gas equivalent of the Tarim Oilfield from 30.8 million tons in 2020 to 33.53 million tons in 2024. Meanwhile, the total amount of energy consumption and carbon emissions has witnessed a substantial decline, with the energy consumption intensity dropping by 13.95% and the carbon emission intensity by 39.08%. The practice of the Tarim Oilfield offers a referable Chinese solution for the green transformation of global deep oil and gas fields and holds significant exemplary significance for promoting the high-quality development of the energy industry.