UAE says pragmatism key to energy transition

The UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and ADNOC Managing Director and Group CEO, Dr Sultan Al Jaber, said that the current energy dynamics have revealed a basic dilemma between accepting the need for energy transition, while heavily reliant on oil and gas.

“It is time to wake up. The oil and gas industry will have to invest over US 600 billion dollars every year until 2030 just to keep up with the demand,” he told the crowd at  the opening ceremony at ADIPEC, the global oil and gas conference, in Abu Dhabi. "After almost a decade of under-investment in our industry, the world has sleepwalked into a supply crunch. It is time to wake up.”

Al Jaber said that the industry must invest in the energy that the world needs today to operate while they prepare for what it needs tomorrow. He said that ADNOC was the first company to bring carbon capture and storage to the region, and they are expanding their capacity from “800 thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide per year to 5 million.” 

"This will significantly reduce ADNOC's operational emissions. It brings us more than one third of the way towards our 2030 carbon intensity target," he told the crowd. 

Earlier this month, the UAE said it plans to invest US $160bn in clean and renewable energy sources within the next three decades. The UAE’s clean energy capacity is expected to reach 12 GW by 2025, Suhail Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure previously said. 

“The future is coming but it is not here yet. We must make progress with pragmatism,” Al Jaber said.

ADNOC's CEO said that the company plans to increase its production capacity to 5 million barrels per day by 2030, as they work on  reducing carbon emissions.