Adnoc targets $1 billion in savings via reduced energy consumption

The initiative comes as part of a broader effort over the past year at Adnoc to sharply reduce its costs and waste to deal with a sustained lower oil price environment.

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The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company said it aims to save US$1 billion over the next three years through measures to cut energy consumption.

The initiative comes as part of a broader effort over the past year at Adnoc to sharply reduce its costs and waste to deal with a sustained lower oil price environment, which has entailed revamping and slimming down bureaucracy and introducing modern management tools.

“We are significantly changing our business practices,” said Omar Al Suwaidi, who was appointed last year to head Adnoc’s gas division. He said the company has implemented an energy-management system that is certified to international standards.

“Further cost savings will accrue as new technologies are implemented across our onshore and offshore facilities,” he said on Tuesday at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.

The goal is for these initiatives to reduce Adnoc’s consumption of natural gas by 156 million cubic feet a day through 2020.

The company says that measures taken so far have already reduced its CO2 emissions by 3.1 million tonnes, about a quarter of which is accounted for by the start-up in November of the world’s first fully commercial carbon-capture steel project.

That project takes about 800,000 tonnes of CO2 generated by Emirates Steel Industries’ two Abu Dhabi plants, compresses it into liquid and runs it 43 kilometres through a pipeline to the Rumaitha and BAB oilfields in Abu Dhabi’s main onshore oilfield concession.

By injecting the CO2 into the oilfields to keep reservoir pressure up, Adnoc is able to displace natural gas that was used for that purpose and can instead be used directly for power generation in the national grid.

amcauley@thenational.ae

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