Saudi Aramco’s upstream business line head Nasir Al-Naimi called on the industry to reduce its CO2 footprint during an interview screened at the International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC), in Kuala Lumpur.
“While new energy has a role to play, it will be a while before it is ready to shoulder a significant burden of the growing world energy demand,” Al-Naimi said. “In other words, the existing and new energy will continue to run in parallel for a long time to come. But that does not mean we can ignore the climate issues our world is facing. In our view, considering that existing energy will continue to play a major role alongside growing alternatives, we must focus on reducing the carbon footprint of oil and gas. And that’s exactly what Aramco and our industry are doing.”
He also outlined three key requirements for maintaining secure and reliable energy supplies in future:
“To ensure energy security and reliability for the world going forward, three factors will be critical to success. They are groundbreaking technologies; innovation; and collaboration among oil and gas companies, new energy companies, energy equipment manufacturers, service providers, technology developers and all other stakeholders, including governments.”
Al-Naimi also noted the that technology would be “integral” to the transition. “The importance of cutting-edge technology can’t be overstated,” he said. “Technology is an integral component of our drive to develop breakthrough solutions that yield economic benefits to support a sustainable energy supply.”
Looking ahead, Mr. Al-Naimi predicted oil would continue to be an important part of the global energy mix, but outlined other areas of focus for Aramco that will increasingly move it toward a goal of reducing carbon from its energy portfolio.
“A much larger refining and marketing business, growing to 8-10 million barrels per day […] Substantially more chemicals, which will be integrated with our refineries, and take advantage of the research we are doing on direct conversion of crude into petrochemicals […] Non-metallic materials is another area of emphasis, with major opportunities in large end-use sectors […] Cleaner gas is another business that we plan to grow, both domestically and internationally […] We see large potential in Blue Hydrogen and Blue Ammonia from oil and gas, combined with CCUS.”
