RIYADH: Energy giant Saudi Aramco has signed Memorandums of Understanding with three US firms to advance the development of potential lower-carbon solutions.
The deals with Aeroseal, Spiritus and Rondo were inked in the presence of the Kingdom’s Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, and his White House counterpart Jennifer Granholm.
The agreements camed after the two officials agreed a roadmap for cooperation between the countries in the sector, amid discussions around carbon management, clean hydrogen, and nuclear energy, as well as electricity and renewables, innovation, and energy-sector supply chain resilience.
Ali Al-Meshari, senior vice president of technology, oversight and coordination at Aramco, said: “Aramco has stated its ambition to achieve net zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions across its wholly-owned operated assets by 2050, and sees opportunities to potentially build a lower-carbon new energy business. Innovative technologies deployed at scale can help reduce the costs of reducing carbon emissions, and we are investing in developing these through our R&D, venture capital, and technology deployment programs. We see the technologies of Aeroseal, Spiritus’, and Rondo to have the potential to scale globally, and specifically in the Middle East.”
Following a successful trial of Aeroseal’s technology in Saudi Arabia, Aramco and the company agreed to explore opportunities to accelerate the deployment of Aeroseal’s technology in the company’s building fleet and elsewhere; pursue joint testing of building ductwork and envelopes nationwide to uncover the most prominent opportunities; and commercialize the technology in novel applications such as gas pipelines.
The deal with Spiritus saw Aramco agree to explore opportunities in the field of direct air capture, with the US firm’s approach in this area potentially addressing major cost challenges.
Aramco and Rondo agreed to explore deployment of heat batteries in the Saudi firm’s global facilities to reduce operating costs and support emissions reduction initiatives.
The companies have started engineering studies for a first industrial scale deployment of Rondo Heat Batteries that could contribute to reduction of emissions from Aramco facilities, with subsequent scale up to 1 gigawatt per hour.
