In a statement posted on its website on Monday, ADNOC revealed that Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, approved ADNOC’s plan to bring forward its net zero ambition to 2045.
The approval came in a meeting of the executive committee of the ADNOC board of directors at ADNOC headquarters, the company highlighted in the statement, adding that ADNOC is the first company in its peer group to accelerate its net zero target to 2045. Nahyan and members of the executive committee called on ADNOC to seek new global partnerships with other progressive energy companies, customers, and technology leaders to collaborate on and boost its decarbonization plan, ADNOC noted in the statement.
In its latest release, ADNOC said it has placed sustainability at the heart of its long-term strategy, “including the decarbonization of its operations, investing in renewables, building a global hydrogen value chain, deploying innovative climate technology solutions, and advancing nature-based solutions such as planting mangroves in the UAE”.
“ADNOC’s commitment to sustainability and decarbonization dates back to the company’s founding,” the company said in the statement.
“Building on billions of dollars of investments in decarbonization and sustainability projects since its inception, ADNOC recently made an initial allocation of $15 billion to expedite the implementation of its key decarbonization initiatives, including carbon capture and storage, electrification, energy efficiency and nature-based solutions,” it added.
“Over the coming months, the company will announce further investments and associated projects that will enable it to meet its updated ambitious decarbonization targets,” ADNOC continued.
In addition, ADNOC said in the statement that it will drive the global growth of renewable energy and green hydrogen through its shareholding in the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), which it describes as a leading renewable energy company targeting a portfolio of more than 100 GW of renewable capacity and the production of one million tons of green hydrogen by 2030.
Projects, Achievements
In its latest statement, ADNOC highlighted that its decarbonization plan includes a $3.8 billion, “first of its kind” at scale project connecting its offshore operations to clean grid power, which it said will reduce its offshore carbon footprint by up to 50 percent.
It also includes building a one million ton per annum low-carbon ammonia production facility to help ADNOC’s customers decarbonize, according to ADNOC, which also stated that it is delivering on its plan to plant 10 million mangroves by 2030.
In 2022, the company planted 200,000 mangrove seeds using drone technology with the aim to aerially plant a total of 2.5 million mangrove seeds over three years, the company noted in the statement, adding that, to date, it has planted more than two million mangrove seedlings across Abu Dhabi.
This year, ADNOC also started two pilot projects to deploy leading climate technologies to capture and permanently store carbon dioxide (CO2) as part of its plan to expand its carbon capture capacity to five million tons per annum by 2030, the company said in the statement.
ADNOC also pointed out in its statement that, back in 2022, the company established a Low Carbon Solutions and International Growth Directorate “to identify opportunities and drive forward its decarbonization plans”.
$15B to Low Carbon
In January 2023, ADNOC announced that it had allocated $15 billion to low carbon solutions.
In a statement posted on its site at the time, ADNOC outlined that the funding is earmarked for “landmark” decarbonization projects by 2030, including carbon capture, electrification, new CO2 absorption technology, and enhanced investments in hydrogen and renewables.
“Acting on the board’s guidance, ADNOC has allocated $15 billion to advance an array of projects across its diversified value chain by 2030,” ADNOC said in a company statement back in January.
“These projects will include investments in clean power, carbon capture and storage (CCS), further electrification of its operations, energy efficiency and new measures to build on ADNOC’s long-standing policy of zero routine gas flaring,” it added.
“ADNOC will apply a rigorous commercial and sustainability assessment to ensure that each project delivers lasting tangible impact,” the company continued.
In that statement, Ahmed Al Jaber, the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and ADNOC Managing Director and Group CEO, said, “under the directives of the UAE’s wise leadership and the ADNOC board of directors, ADNOC continues to take significant steps to make today’s energy cleaner while investing in the clean energies and new technologies of tomorrow”.
“Now, more than ever, the world needs a practical and responsible approach to the energy transition that is both pro-growth and pro-climate, and ADNOC is delivering tangible actions in support of both these goals,” he added.
Net Zero by 2050
In a statement posted on its site in November last year, ADNOC revealed that, during an annual meeting of the ADNOC board of directors, the board directed ADNOC to pursue a net zero by 2050 ambition to support the UAE Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative.
The statement revealed that, at that meeting, the board also endorsed plans to bring forward ADNOC’s five million barrel per day oil production capacity expansion to 2027, from the previous target of 2030, “as part of the accelerated growth strategy”.
“ADNOC produces some of the world’s least carbon intensive oil and this new target will provide the company with greater flexibility to meet rising global energy demand,” ADNOC said in a company statement at the time.
ADNOC, UAE
On its site, ADNOC describes itself as a leading diversified energy group, wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi government. The business has around 4.65 million barrels of oil production capacity per day and produces 11.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, according to its site.
In 2022, the UAE produced 4.020 million barrels of oil per day, which marked a 10.4 percent year on year rise, and 2.09 exajoules of natural gas, which marked a 0.6 percent drop year on year, the latest statistical review of world energy revealed.
The UAE’s renewable energy generation figure came in at 0.07 exajoules last year, according to the review, which highlighted that this was an 11 percent year on year increase.
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