Empowering Green Development and Creating a Zer..

As an international energy and chemical company and a member of the United Nations Global Compact, China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) has always practised the brand promise of " cleaner energy, better life", and unswervingly insisted on the road of green and low-carbon development. Sinopec continues to make progress in its ESG work and actively contributes to energy transition and sustainable development.

I. Environmental protection management continues to be upgraded.

Sinopec has always adhered to the management concept of "environmental protection comes before everything and above everything", constantly improves the construction of the management system, implements environmental pollution prevention and control and ecological environmental protection at high standards, and continuously improves the quality of green development.

The environmental protection management system has been improved day by day. Sinopec strictly abides by the national laws and regulations on ecological environmental protection, and takes the HSE management system as the lead in carrying out environmental management. At present, 16 environmental management systems have been formed covering the whole business lines of environmental protection management such as pollution prevention and control, ecological protection, construction project environmental protection management, environmental protection statistics and monitoring, environmental risks and emergency response. Since the launch of the Green Enterprise Action Plan in 2018, a total of 23.67 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions have been reduced by 2023. Oilfield, refining, sales, scientific research, etc. have all completed the creation of green enterprises.

Environmental risk management has been deepening. Sinopec continues to strengthen environmental risk management and hidden risk management, carry out environmental risk quantitative assessment, environmental risk management and professional training, organise environmental risk assessment on-site verification, systematically sort out and diagnose enterprise environmental risk assessment reports and environmental risk source identification results, and implement the quantitative and hierarchical management and control of risk sources. Moreover, Sinopec implemented water risk prevention and control, checked the operation of environmental protection facilities and potential safety hazards, which effectively prevent environmental risks. The self-developed high-efficiency oil film online monitoring equipment and oil spill risk warning system is capable of oil spill monitoring and oil spill risk zoning and graded early warning, effectively preventing and controlling water pollution and environmental protection incidents caused by oil spills, and preventing a drop of oil or a drop of excessive sewage from entering rivers and lakes.

Environmental governance capacity continues to improve. Sinopec vigourously promotes the development of environmental protection technology, and is committed to continuously improving the company's environmental management and ecological environmental protection capabilities through scientific and technological innovation and key core technologies. Aiming at the major technology of soil pollution prevention and control in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, we took the lead in research and development of a source control-process blocking-in-situ repair coupling technology system. The project demonstration covers nearly 50,000 square metres, and the safety utilisation rate reaches 100%. For the first time, it realises large-scale production and border control at petrochemical sites, which provides a technological guarantee for petrochemical enterprises along the river.

Green operation management has achieved remarkable results. Sinopec integrates ecological and environmental protection requirements into all aspects of enterprise production and operation development. In 2023, the total sulphur dioxide emissions decreased by 5% year-on-year. The Company's industrial water intake decreased by 1% year-on-year, saving 6.3 million cubic metres of water. 100% of the discharge wastewater reached the standard, and the emission of COD and ammonia nitrogen decreased by more than 4% year-on-year. Sinopec created China's first "waste-free group" and 12 "waste-free enterprises" model, forming 49 typical cases that can be replicated and popularised, to help the construction of "waste-free cities". Sinopec carried out special supervision on the investigation and treatment of hidden soil hazards in subsidiaries along the river, and supervise subsidiaries to prevent pollution from the source. Sinopec continues to improve the soil groundwater pollution prevention and control system, and improve the level of groundwater pollution prevention and control. It solidly promotes noise pollution prevention and control along the whole process of production and operation, continues to carry out the resource utilisation of water resources and solid waste, promote waste heat recovery and waste gas recycling, and improve the efficiency of comprehensive resource utilisation.

II. Clean energy leads to transition and upgrading.

Sinopec vigourously implements the green and clean development strategy, adheres to ecological priority, green transition and clean development, promotes the clean utilisation of fossil energy, scale development of clean energy, and low-carbon production process in an all-round way, accelerates the construction of a clean and low-carbon energy supply system, and cultivates new growth points for high-quality development.

Continuing to cultivate the field of geothermal energy and becoming the largest geothermal energy developer and user in China. At present, China's direct geothermal utilisation has been ranked first in the world for a long time with geothermal heating and cooling area of 1.33 billion square metres, equivalent to 92.4 gigawatt, which can replace 24.41 million tons of standard coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 60 million tons. Sinopec's geothermal project in Xiong County has been included in the global promotion list by the International Renewable Energy Agency. By the end of 2023, the clean heating capacity had exceeded 96 million square metres, providing clean heating services for more than one million households in more than 70 cities and counties in 11 provinces and municipalities in China, reducing annual carbon dioxide emissions by about 4.7 million tons. Sinopec innovated and formed two basic theories: the formation mechanism of geothermal system and the mechanism of heat storage and heat transfer, overcome a number of key core technologies such as "heat taking without water consumption" engineering technology, and took the lead in compiling more than 50% of industry standards and China's first international geothermal association standard in the global geothermal field. Shaanxi Xianyang Geothermal Heating Project of Sinopec Green Energy, a JV between Sinopec Star Petroleum Company and Iceland, has successfully registered the world's first CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) project in the field of geothermal heating at the United Nations. Sinopec Star Petroleum Company, Iceland's National Energy Administration and Iceland Arctic Green Company, as executive agencies, jointly established the China-Iceland Geothermal Technology R&D Cooperation Centre, continued to strengthen international geothermal technology R&D cooperation, promoted the establishment of the China-Iceland Geothermal Academy, and organised the first training as a branch of the United Nations University Geothermal Academy in China. In September 2023, Sinopec, as the organizer, successfully held the 2023 World Geothermal Conference. More than 1,400 guests from 54 countries and regions attended the conference. The conference included 793 technical papers and witnessed the signing of 16 cooperation agreements. The Beijing Declaration issued at the conference put forward principles and suggestions for the sustainable development of the global geothermal industry. Other than that, the first international geothermal industry standard "Recommended Practises for Geothermal Heating in China" was also released at the Conference.

Focusing on hydrogen-powered mobility and green hydrogen refining, and accelerating the establishment of the whole industry chain of hydrogen energy. Focused on the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle demonstration urban agglomeration and key areas such as Shandong, Chengdu and Chongqing, we will accelerate the construction of hydrogen refueling stations for hydrogen heavy trucks, hydrogen logistics corridors, port parks and other scenarios. At present, 11 hydrogen fuel cell hydrogen supply centres have been built and 128 hydrogen refueling stations have been developed, making it the enterprise with the largest number of hydrogen refueling stations in the world. At the same time, the planned "West-East Hydrogen Transmission" pipeline will transport "green hydrogen" from Ulanqab to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to promote the green and low-carbon development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Carrying out CCUS technology research and demonstration projects, and achieving remarkable results in carbon emission reduction. In August 2022, Sinopec completed the largest CCUS project in China - the one-million-ton-capacity CCUS demonstration project from Qilu Petrochemical-Shengli Oilfield. The project can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1 million tons per year, which is equivalent to nearly 9 million trees planted or nearly 600,000 economical cars parked for one year. In July 2023, China's first high-pressure room temperature dense phase carbon dioxide transmission pipeline with a million-ton capacity, 100 kilometres of distance and 100 kilograms of transport pressure was put into operation. After the pipeline was put into operation, carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by about 5% compared with the original transportation mode. In 2023, Sinopec Qilu Petrochemical captured 667,000 tons of carbon dioxide, and 472,000 tons of carbon dioxide was injected into Sinopec Shengli Oilfield for EOR.

III. Ecological protection protects clean nature.

On the road of green and high-quality development, Sinopec strictly abides by the requirements of ecological protection, integrates biodiversity protection into the enterprise system, and gives priority to avoiding the red line of ecological protection at all stages of construction, operation and decommissioning, strictly implements biodiversity protection measures, and reduces the disturbance of production and construction to the ecological environment. In the past 10 years, 145 million square metres of ecological restoration has been implemented, and 410 oil and gas wells, 20 stations, 11 oil depots and 23 gas stations in the nature reserve have been actively decommissioned.

Shengli Oilfield adheres to the principle of "development in protection and protection in development", has formulated 18 standards, invested 250 million yuan to vigourously implement the wetland improvement project in the nature reserve, and resolutely protected the precious wetland resources in the Yellow River Delta. It was rated as "Neighborhood biodiversity protection demonstration company" by the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation.

Hubei Petroleum took the initiative to close and dismantle the Wangjiahe oil depot wharf, make way for the porpoise, and created the "Yangtze River Protection Education Base" and "Porpoise Ecological Culture Node" at the original site of the oil depot.

Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Corporation (ZRCC) has created a waste-free and odour-free green demonstration base of "waste gas not reaching the sky, solid waste staying away from the land, and wastewater not leaving the factory", forming China's first natural breeding place for egrets in a petrochemical plant. "Seeing egrets in ZRCC" has become a classic part of China Petrochemical Public Open Day, simultaneously building China's first egret slow live broadcast platform which shows the incubation, feeding, growth of egrets and refinery environment online in real time to the world. ZRCC Egret Park, as the first egret protected area in petrochemical production plant in China, was selected into the United Nations COP15 Global Enterprise Biodiversity Protection Case Collection.

Yanshan Petrochemical adopts the design concept of "natural treatment wetland" to build the sewage purification base into the first "industrial sewage treatment standard discharge + wetland natural ecological restoration system" wetland park in China, and built a 100,000 square metres of wild bird "conservation area", which was selected as the "United Nations Biodiversity Protection Case". Up to now, more than 140 species of birds, 19 species of dragonflies, 28 species of butterflies, 8 species of fish, and 56 kinds of plants have been found in Niukouyu Wetland, including the global endangered bird species - Reed Parrotbill.

Sinopec takes the initiative to embrace green change, takes "net zero" carbon emissions as the ultimate goal, adheres to the road of sustainable development, promotes the extension of the green petrochemical industry chain to green and low-carbon fields such as biotechnology, new environmental protection new materials, and new energy, and strives to bring cleaner, more efficient, diversified and sustainable energy solutions to the world.

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