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Saudi Aramco is working on three major strategies that will support China’s energy and development priorities, company President and CEO Amin H Nasser told China Development Forum 2023
The first strategy, which involves expanding Aramco’s oil production capacity by a million barrels per day to 13 million barrels by 2027 will strengthen China’s long-term energy security, he said.
In addition, the oil major will increase its gas production by more than 50 percent by 2030, which should release an additional million barrels of oil per day for export.
Secondly, Aramco is determined to further reduce the already low carbon intensity of its oil production and methane intensity.
“We are also working on solutions such as advanced carbon capture and storage (CCS) and circular carbon economy technologies. Furthermore, we recently launched a $1.5 billion venture capital sustainability fund to invest in advanced technologies to help us move closer to a net-zero emissions future.”
He said that China’s venture capital space offers significant investment opportunities to stimulate the technology development and innovation required, highlighting the Letter of Intent (LOI) to be part of a new entity being created by Geely and Renault.
The third strategy includes steadily adding lower carbon energy to Aramco’s portfolio, especially blue hydrogen and blue ammonia, electrofuels, and renewables.
“We are evaluating an entry into liquified natural gas (LNG) as well. As the energy transition evolves, there is also the critical issue of Materials Transition. Reducing emissions from hard-to-abate sectors like steel, aluminum, cement and concrete is essential to China’s high-quality development.”
Nasser said the oil firm is partnering with Baosteel to produce steel plates in Saudi Arabia with a lower carbon footprint.
Aramco launched a new centre of excellence for non-metallic technologies called NEXCEL in Beijing.
“In other words, we want to be an all-inclusive source of energy and chemicals for China’s long-term energy security and China’s high-quality development,” he said.
Nasser said the company signed definitive agreements with North Huajin Chemical and Panjin Xincheng to begin construction on an integrated refinery and petrochemical complex in Liaoning Province.
(Writing by D Madhura; Editing by Anoop Menon)
