Occidental Petroleum Corp. and ADNOC are collaborating to evaluate investment opportunities in direct air capture (DAC) facilities and carbon dioxide sequestration hubs in the USA and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to develop carbon management platforms and accelerate their net-zero goals, the two companies said in separate news releases.
Under the terms of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by both parties, ADNOC may evaluate participation in DAC plants and CO2 sequestration hubs under development in the USA by Occidental subsidiary 1PointFive, the Occidental news release said.
Occidental and ADNOC may also evaluate jointly developing one or more UAE-located carbon dioxide sequestration hubs and consider starting feasibility and pre-front-end engineering design studies for a DAC plant with a capacity of one million metric tons per year, under the MOU. The UAE hubs would provide carbon capture services and provide the necessary infrastructure to safely transport carbon dioxide from the UAE’s carbon-intensive and hard-to-abate sectors for permanent storage in Abu Dhabi’s ideal geological formations, ADNOC said in its news release.
Through the collaboration, the companies will also consider opportunities to incorporate innovative carbon dioxide-based technologies into the UAE, including technologies invested in by Occidental such as emissions-free power and sustainable fuels, Occidental said.
“We look forward to building on our longstanding partnership with ADNOC as we advance our plans to globally deploy DAC technology and engage partners who are committed to developing carbon solutions at climate-relevant scale”, Occidental President and CEO Vicki Hollub said. “Partnerships like this one are essential to helping the world reach its climate goals and ensure it has the resources it needs to thrive through the energy transition. We look forward to working with ADNOC on our shared vision of establishing a global net-zero ecosystem.”
Occidental said the agreement was enabled by the UAE-USA Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy (PACE), which was launched in November 2022 and is expected to mobilize $100 billion in clean energy and carbon management projects, including carbon capture and storage (CCS) and DAC by 2035.
“This agreement highlights how the UAE-U.S. Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy is driving innovative climate technologies to decarbonize the energy sector”, ADNOC Executive Director of Low Carbon Solutions and International Growth Musabbeh Al Kaabi said. “The need to significantly reduce carbon emissions to address climate change is clear and urgent and carbon capture is an important technology that can be scaled up to decarbonize across all industries.”
“ADNOC is a pioneer in carbon management, exemplified by our industry-leading low-carbon intensity and our operation of Al Reyadah, the region’s first commercial-scale carbon capture facility. As ADNOC accelerates its net zero ambition to 2045 and decarbonizes our operations, partnerships like this offer the potential to transform the systems that will be vital to provide the lower-carbon energy the world needs for the energy transition”, Al Kaabi added.
Occidental said that 1PointFive is currently building STRATOS, which is “expected to be the world’s largest DAC plant”, in Texas. The facility, which will use technology provided by Canada-based Carbon Engineering, is designed to capture up to 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
According to the release, in January, a body was formed to govern PACE, co-chaired by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, minister of industry and advanced technology and ADNOC managing director and group CEO, as well as Amos Hochstein, White House senior advisor to the president for energy and investment.
“The world is going to need a host of technologies, including DAC and CCUS, to meet our global climate objectives”, Hochstein said. “This important announcement is a great example of what the U.S.- UAE Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy (PACE) can help enable. I look forward to what this agreement yields.”
According to a separate news release from Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), the company will work with Occidental and 1PointFive to develop and design systems architecture for its large-scale DAC plants. Using AWS infrastructure, 1PointFive can analyze real-time DAC performance data to optimize processes and equipment performance for peak efficiency, and also apply learnings for future plants that are expected to capture one million metric tons per year each, AWS said in the release.
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