Amin H Nasser, CEO of Aramco, has said in an address to the Energy Intelligence Forum in London that the COP28 climate conference should focus on cutting emissions from hydrocarbons, rather than reducing production
The focus should be on adding carbon capture and storage and investing in more efficient production systems to reduce emissions, Nasser said. "The industry can really help and contribute to that." Aramco is building one of the biggest carbon capture and storage projects, with nine million tons of carbon capture and storage capacity, he said. "We will continue to lead because of the projects we have in the pipeline to continue to reduce our CO2 emissoins and methane emissions to maintain energy affordability and security in order for us to reach our sustainable aspirations of net zero by 2050.
"We are working on a lot of energy projects as part of the transition...we need to build the new, which is solar, wind, hydrogen and other alternatives. But they need to go in parallel, and we need to adjust the mix as we go forward. We need to continue to invest in conventional energy while decarbonising conventional energy and making it more efficient."
The world will need oil and gas for decades and renewables won't meet this need, he said, adding that cuts to oil and gas production would result in energy shortages and price spikes.
Nasser stressed the importance of continuing to invest in conventional oil and gas production capacity to meet future demand and offset a decline in global production capacity of around 5-7mn bpd every year, stressing that Aramco was continuing to invest in upstream development.
Progress on projects such as Marjan, Berri, Dammam, and Zuluf crude oil increments illustrates this. The Marjan and Berri crude oil increments are anticipated to contribute 300mn bpd and 250mn bpd of production capacity by 2025, respectively. Additionally, the Dammam development project aims to add 25mn bpd and 50mn bpd of crude oil by 2024 and 2027, while the Zuluf crude oil increment is poised to establish a central facility processing 600mn bpd of crude oil from the Zuluf field by 2026.
Nasser also highlighted the company’s downstream expansion and focus on LNG, hydrogen and liquids-to-chemicals.
