The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC; www.adnoc.ae) signed a strategic framework agreement with Eni S.p.A. (Rome, Italy; www.eni.com) to explore new opportunities for collaboration in carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS), where ADNOC is an industry leader, and additional strategic opportunities in research and development (R&D) across the oil and gas value chain.
The agreement brings together two leading energy producers to unlock value in areas of strategic importance to both companies while reinforcing their existing partnerships across the oil and gas value chain. It also builds on ADNOC’s recently announced sustainability goals, particularly its commitment to decrease its greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity by 25 percent by 2030, enabled by its industry-leading CCUS program.
Under the terms of the agreement, ADNOC and Eni will jointly explore opportunities for collaboration in relation to innovative geomechanical and geochemical workflows for CCUS programs as well as in advanced analysis and modeling of thermally induced fractures in oil and gas reservoirs.
Geomechanics refers to the study of how subsurface rocks deform or fail in response to changes in stress, pressure, and temperature, while geochemistry relates to the study of the chemical composition of the earth’s crust. Both geomechanics and geochemistry relate to the development of CCUS programs.
The two partners also agreed to assess additional strategic opportunities for collaboration in R&D that can potentially optimize performance, drive efficiencies and unlock greater value for both companies. This potential for collaboration in R&D closely aligns with ADNOC’s strategy to drive innovation and seek new advanced technologies to enable it to maximize value from every barrel of oil it produces and deliver the greatest possible returns to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The potential for collaboration in CCUS by ADNOC and Eni complements ADNOC’s CCUS program, which has seen the company establish the Al Reyadah facility, the first commercial-scale CCUS facility in the Middle East. Currently, the facility has the capacity to capture 800,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually and ADNOC plans to expand the capacity of this program six-fold by capturing CO2 from its own gas plants, with the aim of reaching 5 million metric tons of CO2 every year by 2030.