Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has become the first major oil company in the world to accelerate its decarbonisation plan by five years and aims to be net zero by 2045.
The revised target was approved by Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, who chaired a meeting of the Executive Committee of the ADNOC Board of Directors at their headquarters.
ADNOC will also aim to achieve zero methane emissions by 2030. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term.
The news comes as UAE gets ready to host COP28 from November 30 in Dubai. Sultan Al Jaber, the head of ADNOC is also the President-Designate of the climate summit.
Sustainability is at the heart of ADNOC’s long-term strategy, which includes decarbonisation of its operations, investing in renewables, building a global hydrogen value chain, deploying innovative climate technology solutions and advancing nature-based solutions such as planting mangroves.
ADNOC recently made an allocation of $15 billion to expedite the implementation of its key decarbonisation initiatives, including carbon capture and storage, electrification, energy efficiency and nature-based solutions. The company said it will announce further investments and associated projects that will enable it to meet its updated ambitious decarbonisation targets.
It will also drive the global growth of renewable energy and green hydrogen through its shareholding in the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), which is a leading renewable energy company. Together, they are targeting a portfolio of more than 100 GW of renewable capacity and the production of one million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030.
ADNOC: Leading in carbon reduction
The company’s decarbonisation plan includes a $3.8 billion, first-of-its-kind at scale project, connecting its offshore operations to clean grid power, which will reduce its offshore carbon footprint by up to 50 percent. It also includes building a 1 million tonnes per annum low-carbon ammonia production facility to help ADNOC’s customers decarbonise.
This year, ADNOC started two pilot projects to deploy leading climate technologies to capture and permanently store carbon dioxide (CO2) as part of its plan to expand its carbon capture capacity to 5 million tonnes per annum by 2030.
The company is also delivering on its plan to plant 10 million mangroves by 2030. In 2022, the company planted 200,000 mangrove seeds using drone technology with the aim to aerially plant a total of 2.5 million mangrove seeds over three years.
To date, it has planted more than two million mangrove seedlings across Abu Dhabi.
