Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), the world’s largest company by revenues, joined the World Bank’s initiative “Zero Routine Flaring by 2030”.
The state-run company has a strong focus on flaring reduction, which remained at less than 1% of its total raw gas production in the first half of 2019, according to the company's statement on Wednesday.
Ahmad A. Al Saadi, senior vice-president at Saudi Aramco, said that this initiative is an important global effort to eliminate flaring.
“We have been taking active steps to reduce flaring in our operations for the past 40 years and have invested in a range of flaring reduction technologies and programs to achieve our excellent performance,” Al Saadi added.
He added that the company is also investing in advanced technologies to enable greater efficiency and lower emissions in transport, carbon-free hydrogen fuels, and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS).
This comes in line with Saudi Aramco’s broader effort to enable the circular carbon economy and deliver clean, reliable and affordable energy to the world while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions.
“Saudi Aramco’s low flaring levels are a result of its decades-long focus on sustainability, which encompasses the development of the Kingdom’s Master Gas System in the 1970’s, rolling out a Company-wide Flaring Minimization Roadmap, using innovative flaring reduction technologies and establishing a Fourth Industrial Revolution Center that monitors all the company’s operations including flaring in real-time,” the statement highlighted.
Moreover, as a result of Saudi Aramco’s reservoir management best practices, flaring minimization and energy efficiency programs, the Company’s 2018 upstream carbon intensity figure is among the lowest globally at 10.2 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per barrel of oil equivalent.
It is worth mentioning that “Zero Routine Flaring by 2030” initiative was launched in April 2015, and it is a WB climate collaboration that brings together governments, oil and gas companies, and development institutions from around the world to eliminate routine flaring by 2030.
Over 80 governments and organizations have joined the initiative, including the government of Saudi Arabia, which joined in December 2018.