The UAE-US Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy (also known as PACE) was established in November 2022 and anticipates a rise of US$100 billion (AED367 billion) in clean energy and carbon management projects by 2035. This includes direct air capture (DAC) and CCS.
UAE-US Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy Paves the Way
Amos Hochstein, Senior Advisor to the President for Energy and Investment at the White House, and HE Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, who is also the Managing Director & Group CEO of ADNOC, co-chaired the expert body established to oversee PACE in January 2023.
Hochstein said that the world would need a range of technologies, including DAC and CCUS, to meet global climate goals. He also said that the major announcement was a good example of how the U.S.-UAE Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy (PACE) could help. He further added that he was looking forward to how the deal would work out.
As stated by IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, investments in CCS and DAC would help to slow down climate change in a major way.
Vicki Hollub, who is the President and CEO of Occidental, stated that the company is looking forward to strengthening its long-term relationship with ADNOC. She said they wanted to move forward with DAC technology on a world scale and work with committed partners to make carbon solutions that would hugely impact the climate.
ADNOC and Occidental are looking into building DAC sites in the UAE as part of the deal. One of these projects could be the first megaton DAC project built outside of the US.
The agreement highlighted the UAE-US Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy’s role in supporting revolutionary climate technologies to decarbonize the energy industry, according to Musabbeh Al Kaabi, Executive Director of Low Carbon Solutions and International Growth at ADNOC.
In addition, the companies will evaluate whether to jointly create one or more carbon management hubs in the UAE. The hubs could provide carbon capture services and the infrastructure needed to transport CO2 from the UAE’s carbon-intensive and hard-to-abate sectors and permanently store it in Abu Dhabi’s appropriate geological formations.
According to the SCA, ADNOC will also investigate its involvement in several DAC and CO2 sequestration centers being developed by Occidental’s subsidiary, 1PointFive, in the US. One of these centers is its Stratos DAC project, which is now being built in Texas and, when fully operational, will be able to absorb 500,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.
Takeaways
The partnership between Occidental and ADNOC embodies ambition and purpose, and it reflects a unified appeal for group action. As their joint effort gains momentum, it is poised to provide quantifiable reductions in carbon emissions while acting as an example of radical change.
