Carbon capture: ADNOC, Australia’s Santos team up

ADNOC Group has partnered with Australia’s Santos to collaborate on carbon management and develop technology to accelerate decarbonisation throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

The partnership allows the two entities to work together to advance critical carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies that are necessary to accelerate the decarbonisation of the oil industry worldwide, ADNOC said in a statement.

ADNOC and Santos will also explore the development of a carbon dioxide (CO2) shipping and transportation infrastructure network to enable heavy-emitting sectors to capture, ship and permanently store CO2.

“Large scale-up of CCS is required to meet the world’s climate objectives and companies such as Santos and ADNOC have the technology, infrastructure and knowledge to be able to deliver low-cost CCS and low-carbon energy competitively on a global scale,” said Alan Stuart-Grant, energy solutions executive vice president at Santos.

“There is an enormous opportunity for traditional energy suppliers such Australia and the UAE to be at the forefront of helping regional decarbonisation through utilisation of our natural competitive advantages in carbon storage and energy supply chains.”

ADNOC decarbonisation strategy

The oil industry has backed carbon capture as an important technology to fight climate change, but critics have said it’s costly and will be difficult to deploy at the scale needed to reduce emissions.

ADNOC’s partnership with Santos follows the state-owned energy firm’s recent agreements to explore CCS and direct air capture (DAC) projects both in the local market and internationally while supporting the company’s wider carbon management strategy.

The energy firm is targeting a carbon capture capacity of 10mtpa by 2030, equivalent to taking over 2 million internal combustion vehicles off the road. It currently operates the Al Reyadah facility, which can process 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

ADNOC reached a final investment decision to develop the Habshan CCS project, one of the largest in the Middle East and North Africa region, and unveiled another project at its Hail and Ghasha offshore development, taking the firm’s committed investment for carbon capture capacity to almost 4 million tonnes per annum (mtpa).

Habshan CCS project can capture and permanently store 1.5 mtpa of carbon dioxide within geological formations deep underground.

The company joined forces with  Occidental Petroleum to explore CCS investment opportunities in the UAE and the US to create a carbon management platform.

The Abu Dhabi-based energy giant is also in talks with ExxonMobil to collaborate on low-carbon technologies and the outlook for the global energy industry.

“ADNOC continues to build on its pioneering role in safely capturing and permanently storing carbon dioxide as we accelerate toward net zero by 2045 and target CCS capacity of 10 mmtpa by 2030,” said Musabbeh Al Kaabi, the company’s executive director, Low Carbon Solutions and International Growth.

It recently made an initial allocation of $15bn to expedite the implementation of its key decarbonisation initiatives, including carbon capture and storage, electrification, energy efficiency and nature-based solutions.

Read: UAE’s ADNOC sets ambitious emission target ahead of COP28