Saudi Aramco inks 3 deals with American companies for lower-carbon solutions

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Riyadh – Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) has signed three memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with US-based companies to develop lower-carbon energy solutions.

Aramco signed an MoU with Aeroseal to explore accelerating the deployment of Aeroseal’s technology in its buildings and pursue nationwide testing of building ductwork and envelopes, according to a press release.

The agreement also aims to commercialise the technology in applications like gas pipelines and localise Aeroseal’s supply chain in Saudi Arabia.

Aramco inked an MoU with Spiritus to explore opportunities in direct air capture. Spiritus’ novel approach aims to reduce costs, and energy needs, and improve carbon adsorption efficiency up to tenfold.

Furthermore, the Saudi energy giant penned an MoU with Rondo to explore deploying heat batteries in its global facilities to reduce operating costs and emissions.

The companies have begun engineering studies for the first industrial-scale deployment, with plans to scale up to 1 gigawatt/hour (GWh).

Ali Al Meshari, Senior Vice President of Technology, Oversight, and Coordination at Aramco, said: “Aramco has stated its ambition to achieve net zero and greenhouse gas emissions across its wholly-owned operated assets by 2050, and sees opportunities to potentially build a lower-carbon new energy business.”

“Innovative technologies deployed at scale can help reduce the costs of reducing carbon emissions, and we are investing in developing these through our R&D, venture capital, and technology deployment programmes,” Al Meshari added.

He stated: “We see the technologies of Aeroseal, Spiritus, and Rondo to have the potential to scale globally, and specifically in the Middle East.”

It is worth noting that Aramco logged a 14.44% year-on-year (YoY) decline in net profit to SAR 102.27 billion in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024 from SAR 119.54 billion.