Production of mature oil fields emits significant amount of CO₂ related to circulation and handling of large volumes of gas and water. This can be reduced either by (1) using a low-carbon energy source and/or (2) reducing the volumes of the non-hydrocarbon produced/injected fluids. This paper describes how improved oil recovery techniques can be designed to reduce CO₂ intensity (kgCO₂/bbl oil) of oil production by efficient use of the injectants. It is shown that CO₂ emissions associated with injection of chemicals is strongly influenced by water cut at the start of the project, extent of the water cut reduction, and chemical utilization factor defined as the volume of produced oil per mass or volume of the injectant. As an example, for the oil field considered in this study, 3–8% reduction in water cut can result in 50–80% reduction in its CO₂ intensity. In addition to the incremental oil production with lower CO₂ intensity, the earlier implementation of enhanced oil recovery methods can extend the lifetime of the mature fields if carbon emission cut-offs are applied. In case of CO₂ enhanced oil recovery (EOR), the large storage potential for CO₂ can significantly reduce the overall CO₂ emissions of oil, albeit at a large energetic cost. For CO₂ EOR using CO₂ captured from gas power plants, improving the utilization factor from 2 bbl/tCO₂ to 4 bbl/tCO₂ can reduce the CO₂ intensity of the produced oil from 120 kgCO₂/bbl to 80 kgCO₂/bbl (33% reduction).

成熟油田的生产排放大量与循环和处理大量气体和水有关的CO _{2 。}这可以通过 (1) 使用低碳能源和/或 (2) 减少非烃生产/注入流体的体积来减少。本文描述了如何设计改进的采油技术以通过有效使用注入剂来降低采油的 CO ₂强度（kgCO ₂ /bbl 油）。结果表明，CO ₂与注入化学品相关的排放受项目开始时的含水量、含水量减少的程度以及定义为每质量或每体积注入剂的产出油体积的化学利用率因子的影响很大。例如，对于本研究中考虑的油田，含水率降低 3-8% 可导致其 CO ₂强度降低 50-80%。除了以较低的 CO ₂强度增加石油产量外，如果应用碳排放截止，早期实施提高采收率方法可以延长成熟油田的寿命。在 CO ₂提高采油率 (EOR) 的情况下，CO 2 的巨大储存潜力_可以显着降低总 CO₂排放石油，尽管能源成本很高。对于使用从燃气电厂捕获的CO 2 进行CO _{2 EOR}，将利用率从2 bbl/tCO ₂提高到4 bbl/tCO ₂可以将产出油的CO ₂强度从120 kgCO ₂ /bbl 降低到80 kgCO ₂ /桶（减少 33%）。