Abu Dhabi's state-owned Adnoc and Siemens Energy plan to jointly develop pilot blockchain technology that will certify the carbon intensity of a range of products, offering customers clarity over the carbon footprint of their purchases.
"By using smart sensor data gathered from across Adnoc's operational [supply] chain the pilot will show how much CO2 was used to make products such as Murban crude, ammonia and aviation fuels," Adnoc said.
The information will be automatically recorded onto a decentralised blockchain ledger, Adnoc noted.
The new pilot project aims to "offer transparency" to independent regulators, allowing them to certify the carbon intensity of Adnoc's products.
It "will show the world why energy supplied by Adnoc is among the least carbon intensive in the oil and gas industry," Adnoc executive director of people, technology and corporate support Fahad al-Yafei said. He said that the technology will be operational "within 18 months".
His comments come just days after Adnoc chief executive Sultan al-Jaber coined the maxim: "maximum energy, minimum emissions" while speaking at the Adipec conference in Abu Dhabi. "The clear message [al-Jaber] wanted to give to his organisations and to the broader stakeholder base is we want to be very transparent about the CO2 emissions of the company," Siemens Energy executive board member Vinod Philip said. "In order for anyone to be able to understand how much to minimise, you have to have a transparency level that shows what the starting point is," he said.
Philip said this technology would be able to track the carbon intensity at every step, which gives a certified ledger providing the carbon intensity behind it.
The low-carbon energy certificate initiative forms part of a broader preliminary agreement signed between Adnoc and Siemens Energy, under which specialists from both companies will jointly create technologies to accelerate decarbonisation and the transition to clean energy.
Philip said Siemens Energy is also in discussions with Saudi Arabia to potentially deploy similar technology there.
The two will co-operate on electrification and "Power-to-X" technologies to produce green hydrogen and its derivatives, including synthetic CO2-derived products, Adnoc said.
The UAE is set on a path to maximise the value and production capacity of its vast hydrocarbon reserves.
A holder of one of the largest spare capacities in Opec, the UAE in 2018 announced it would raise crude production capacity from 3.5mn b/d at the time to 5mn b/d by 2030. It is now mulling options to expedite those plans, sources familiar with the matter told Argus.
