Abu Dhabi, UAE – ADNOC and Occidental on Tuesday signed a strategic collaboration agreement (SCA) to evaluate potential investment opportunities in carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) hubs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and United States (US), with a view to developing a carbon management platform to accelerate the net zero goals of both companies.
The agreement is enabled by the UAE-US Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy (PACE), which was launched in November 2022 and is expected to catalyse US$100 billion (AED367 billion) investment in clean energy and carbon management projects, including CCS and direct air capture (DAC), by 2035.
In January 2023, an expert body was formed to govern PACE, co-chaired by Dr Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and Managing Director and Group CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), and Amos Hochstein, US Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security.
“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 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), investments in CCS and DAC will play an important role in mitigating climate change.
Vicki Hollub, President and Chief Executive Officer at 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.”
As part of the agreement, ADNOC and Occidental are evaluating the development of DAC facilities in the UAE, including what could be the first megaton DAC project constructed outside of the US.
The companies will also assess the joint development of one or more carbon management hubs in the UAE. The hubs would be able to offer carbon capture services and provide the necessary infrastructure to safely transport CO2 from the UAE’s carbon-intensive and hard-to-abate sectors and permanently store it in Abu Dhabi’s ideal geological formations.
Under the SCA, ADNOC will also explore its participation in a number of DAC and CO2 sequestration hubs in the US that are under development by Occidental’s subsidiary, 1PointFive. Its Stratos DAC project, currently under construction in Texas, is one of such hubs and it is expected to capture 500,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere per year when fully operational.
ADNOC is set to increase investments in decarbonisation efforts, backed by an initial US$15 billion allocation to low-carbon solutions. The company extends an open invitation to investors, climate technology providers and industry across all sectors to partner on its journey to supercharge and accelerate decarbonisation solutions.