The biggest oil producer in the United Arab Emirates plans to develop a project that will nearly triple its capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to store it below ground.
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. is developing a project that will capture 1.5 million tons a year of carbon dioxide emissions from its Habshan natural gas processing facility, the company said in a statement. It didn’t provide a cost estimate for the project.
The carbon dioxide gas that’s captured will be pumped into an oil field where it will be used to boost output in a process known as enhanced oil recovery, Musabbeh Al Kaabi, Adnoc’s head of low carbon solutions and international growth, said in an interview. The carbon will be permanently stored in the underground caverns and contribute to Adnoc’s target to have net zero emissions by 2045, he said.
The project may ultimately qualify to receive carbon credits, Al Kaabi said. Those are certificates that recognize a company’s ability to reduce emissions and that can be used to offset carbon produced from other projects or operations. Persian Gulf oil producers like the UAE will likely need to purchase carbon credits to offset their emissions, especially for highly polluting industries like construction, cement production or transport. Still, Al Kaabi said that wasn’t the main aim of the new project.
“We’re not doing this for carbon credits,” Al Kaabi said. “The ultimate goal is to remove carbon dioxide.”
Adnoc is also developing a plan to capture emissions from other production facilities and to store the carbon in saline aquifers in the emirate, Al Kaabi said. That project would not contribute to additional oil production, he said.
The UAE, the first Gulf state to declare a target to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, is hosting the UN’s main climate conference later this year. The third-largest producer in OPEC has faced criticism for its plans to raise oil production capacity by about 20% to 5 million barrels a day by 2027 and for naming Adnoc Chief Executive Officer Sultan Al Jaber as head of the COP28 conference.
Al Kaabi says Adnoc is looking to pump oil that meets global demand while keeping carbon emissions related to production among the lowest in the world. The company has also set a priority on acquiring and developing gas projects globally and supplying that fuel as a cleaner replacement to coal, he said.
Adnoc, the government producer based in the UAE capital, already operates a facility that captures 800,000 tons per year of carbon from a steel plant in the emirate. The new project, which is set to be in operation by 2026, will boost the emirate’s carbon capture capacity to 2.3 million tons per year.
The company in July accelerated its net zero target by five years to 2045 and released the calculation of its Scope 1 and 2 emissions, those linked to its own operations and from energy it uses to run its business. Adnoc hasn’t announced its Scope 3 emissions, or those produced by consumers using its oil and gas.
(Updates with executive comments from fourth paragraph. A previous version corrected the capacity of an existing plant.)
