Saudi Aramco has announced that it is joining the World Bank initiative Zero Routine Flaring by 2030. Flaring by Saudi Aramco has remained at less than 1% of its total raw gas production in the first half of 2019.
Ahmad A. Al-Saadi, Saudi Aramco’s senior vice president for technical services, said, “We are proud to join the Zero Routine Flaring by 2030 initiative, which we view as 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.”
He added, “Beyond this initiative, we are also investing in advanced technologies to enable greater efficiency and lower emissions in transport, carbon-free hydrogen fuels and carbon capture, utilization and storage. This is all part of our 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 1970s, rolling out a companywide 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.
In addition, and 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.
Launched in April 2015, the Zero Routine Flaring by 2030 initiative is a World Bank climate collaboration that brings together governments, oil and gas companies, and development institutions from around the world to eliminate routine flaring by 2030. More than 80 governments and organizations have joined the initiative, including the government of Saudi Arabia, which joined in December 2018.