The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has signed a strategic framework agreement with Italy’s energy company Eni to explore new opportunities for collaboration in carbon capture utilisation and storage, CCUS, and additional strategic opportunities in research and development across the oil and gas value chain
The agreement builds on ADNOC’s recently announced sustainability goals, particularly its commitment to decrease its greenhouse gas, GHG, intensity by 25 per cent by 2030, enabled by its industry-leading CCUS programme.
The framework agreement was signed by Dr Sultan bin Ahmad Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of State and ADNOC Group CEO, and Claudio Descalzi, CEO of Eni.
Dr Al Jaber said, “The agreement underscores ADNOC’s targeted approach to value-add partnerships that is enabling us to unlock and maximise value from Abu Dhabi’s substantial hydrocarbon resources as we deliver our 2030 smart growth strategy.
“We look forward to swiftly developing this framework agreement to another new mutually beneficial partnership with Eni as the agreement offers significant potential for exciting and sustainable growth opportunities.”
Under the terms of the agreement, ADNOC and Eni will jointly explore opportunities for collaboration in relation to innovative geomechanical and geochemical workflows for CCUS programmes as well as in advanced analysis and modelling of thermally induced fractures in oil and gas reservoirs.
Geomechanics refers to the study of how subsurface rocks deform or fail in response to changes in stress, pressure, and temperature, while geochemistry relates to the study of the chemical composition of the earth’s crust. Both geomechanics and geochemistry relate to the development of CCUS programmes.
Descalzi said, “Both companies will collaborate to pursue new mid-term solutions aimed at leading the current energy transition in line with Eni’s decarbonisation strategy aimed to achieve net-zero emissions in its upstream business by 2030 and ADNOC’s recently announced sustainability goals.
“This is a holistic collaboration that will further strengthen the alliance between the two companies by designing technological trajectories for the evolution and transformation of the upstream and downstream businesses.”
The two partners also agreed to assess additional strategic opportunities for collaboration in R&D that can potentially optimise performance, drive efficiencies and unlock greater value for both companies. This potential for collaboration in R&D closely aligns with ADNOC’s strategy to drive innovation and seek new advanced technologies to enable it to maximise value from every barrel of oil it produces and deliver the greatest possible returns to the UAE.
