The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has announced a set of comprehensive sustainability goals, extending its legacy of responsible oil and gas production and reinforcing its longstanding commitment to environmental stewardship
The announcement was made by Dr Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of State and Adnoc Group CEO, while speaking at the opening ceremony of the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW).
As part of its sustainability goals, ADNOC plans to decrease its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity by 25 per cent by 2030, and to limit its freshwater consumption ratio to below 0.5 per cent of total water use.
In addition, ADNOC will continue to protect and support biodiversity across its operations and the broader local environment. As part of this commitment, ADNOC plans to plant 10mn mangrove seedlings in Al Dhafra Region in the emirate of Abu Dhabi by the end of 2022.
Over the same period, ADNOC plans to achieve In-Country Value (ICV) of 50 per cent across its full value chain by 2030. To date, the programme has driven more than US$12bn back into the UAE economy and created more than 1,500 private-sector jobs for UAE nationals since it was launched in January 2018.
ADNOC’s sustainability goals are underpinned by a commitment to be the global benchmark for safety and asset integrity.
Dr Al Jaber said, “Crucially, we are reinforcing our role as the primary catalyst of the UAE’s socio-economic development through our In-Country Value goal, while maintaining a firm focus on the safety of our people and the integrity of our assets. Building on 50 years of responsible production, ADNOC will continue to work in partnership with key stakeholders to prioritise sustainability and we will continue to make a significant investment in new and innovative technologies to improve environmental performance.”
To enable ADNOC’s goal to reduce its GHG intensity by 25 per cent, the company is building on the success of the region’s first commercial-scale carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) facility.
Currently, Al Reyadah facility has the capacity to capture 800,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. The company plans to expand the capacity of this programme six-fold by capturing CO2 from its own gas plants, with the aim of reaching five million tonnes of CO2 every year by 2030.
One of the major success factors of ADNOC’s high environmental performance is its longstanding zero intentional flaring policy, which has reduced the volume of natural gas flared by more than 90 per cent since the inception of the company.
Environmental protection is an important pillar of ADNOC’s ‘Oil and Gas 4.0’ mission for the oil and gas industry to modernise to remain an essential pillar of the future diversified energy mix. The company prioritises investments in technology to monitor and reduce environmental impacts of its operations.
Bespoke health, safety, and environment (HSE) information system is built into ADNOC’s Panorama Digital Command Centre to give instant, real-time readings across multiple environmental key performance indicators (KPIs) by harvesting information from millions of data sensors.
ADNOC also set up a Centralised Hazardous Waste and Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) treatment and disposal facility to ensure proper management of wastes generated from oil and gas industries.
