Saudi Arabia’s Petro Rabigh inaugurates carbon capture project

It will be able to capture 300 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide per day from Petro Rabigh's chemicals plant

Petro Rabigh is a joint oil refining and petrochemical venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical. Reuters

Saudi Arabia’s Petro Rabigh and Gulf Cryo have launched a new carbon capture and utilisation project in the kingdom.

The project, in the Red Sea town of Rabigh, will capture 300 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide per day directly from Petro Rabigh's mono ethylene glycol (MEG) plant, the companies said in a statement on Thursday.

That would result in a reduction of 100,000 metric tonnes per annum of carbon emissions at the source from the MEG plant, representing an 85 per cent reduction in its total annual emissions footprint.

Petro Rabigh is a joint oil refining and petrochemical venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical.

“Through this pioneering initiative under our strategic partnership, we are demonstrating an unwavering commitment to significantly reducing emissions over the long term,” said Othman Al Ghamdi, president and chief executive of Petro Rabigh.

“This directly supports the kingdom's ambition to achieve net zero emissions by 2060.”

Carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) involves trapping carbon dioxide emissions from industrial activities such as steel and cement production, as well as from fossil fuel combustion in power generation.

The global CCUS market, which was valued at $1.9 billion in 2020, is projected to reach $7 billion by 2030, growing nearly 13.8 per cent per annum, according to Allied Market Research.

“This landmark project anchors our leading position in CCUS solutions in the region and marks our first carbon capture project in the kingdom,” said Abdul Al Mazro, vice chairman of Gulf Cryo.

Investments of up to $13.5 trillion will be needed by 2050 to help hard-to-abate sectors such as production, energy, and transport to transition to a sustainable and carbon-neutral future, a World Economic Forum report said in November.