The French oil company TotalEnergies and the UAE’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) – OPEC’s third-biggest oil producer have signed an agreement to work together on carbon capture and storage and low-carbon hydrogen projects.
According to the Abu Dhabi government’s media office, the agreement was signed during a visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to the UAE.
ADNOC, UAE’s largest oil company, is planning to boost carbon capture utilization and storage capacity sixfold by 2030 and aims to reach a target of 5 million tons of CO2 capture each year by 2030. The current capture capacity of ADNOC is announced to come at 800,000 tons of CO2 annually. Those initiatives address the company’s effort to become net zero by 2050.
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The two companies have also made a similar deal back in November 2020. They locked in a strategic framework agreement to explore joint research, development, and deployment partnership projects in the areas of CO2 emission reductions and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). Right now they expand on their collaboration by also looking into low-carbon hydrogen.https://www.youtube.com/embed/K5nYaG8ALkc?feature=oembed
As reported, some other agreements were also signed between the UAE and French companies during Macron’s visit that include exploring opportunities in upstream oil and gas operations in Abu Dhabi.
ADNOC announced a plan to spend $127 billion over the next five years, from 2022 to 2026 to increase the country’s hydrocarbon reserves which include natural gas and oil.
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The agreement between the two oil majors is an important step towards the decarbonization efforts of the sector, however, the simultaneous investments they make into fossil fuels exploration is a sign they are not just ready to move away completely from the business as usual opportunities in the energy sector. That signals the transition towards clean energy fuel sources could move slower than necessary in the next few decades.
