China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation's (HKG: 0386, "Sinopec") has successfully obtained ISO's approval for the Technical Specifications for Multi-element Thermal Composite Flooding of Heavy Oil (the "Technical Specification") proposed by academician Sun Huanquan's team. Leveraging Sinopec's independent innovative technologies, the Technical Specification is China's first to receive approval in the field of heavy oil thermal recovery and will promote international technical cooperation and global heavy oil development upon release.

Heavy oil refers to crude oil of high density and viscosity, and it is a key petroleum resource accounting for 36 percent of global proved oil reserves. The heavy oil is also an important raw material for specialty oils, and the naphthenic heavy oil, coined as the "rare earth" of oil, is a high-quality raw material for producing asphalt and transformer oil. China's annual production of heavy oil has exceeded 15 million tons for 13 consecutive years.

Due to land-phase sedimentation and complex geological conditions, China's heavy oil reserves are buried deep with thin oil layers, so the developments are facing challenges such as flow speed and distance. With the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Sinopec's key science and technology projects, Sun Huanquan's team focused on tackling the bottlenecks of heavy oil development and innovated the multi-element thermal compositive development technology that has been applied on a large scale in Shengli and Henan oilfields, which enables Sinopec to achieve annual heavy oil production of over 4.8 million tons.

Next, Sun Huanquan and the team will set up an international working group with technical experts from the U.S., Saudi Arabia and other countries following ISO's requirements to speed up the drafting of the international standard and release it at the earliest availability.