Heading for hydrogen and a lower-carbon future

Aramco is working on providing the infrastructure and the technologies to help shape an emerging lower-carbon energy economy, in Saudi Arabia and beyond.

Andrew Gray |
  • A global low-emissions future will rely on technology and energy innovations on a huge scale, and Aramco is well positioned to play an important role in a decarbonizing world
  • Reducing carbon emissions is an important step, but not enough in and of itself — carbon must be removed, and what is captured needs to become a valuable resource in its own right
  • Hydrogen is also gaining significant traction as a viable lower-carbon fuel for long-haul transport and as a ‘zero-emission at point of use’ energy source that can impact high-emitting industries

It is one of the greatest challenges of our time — the need to balance the increasing demand for affordable and reliable energy with the need to reduce global carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. Aramco’s primary energy products oil and gas, natural resources that have enabled global growth and prosperity for over a century, are in the spotlight within this debate. However, hydrocarbons will have a key role in the energy mix for some time yet, so what could the solution be, and how can we transition towards environmental sustainability in the oil and gas industry?

Repurposing CO2 and harnessing hydrogen’s potential

What’s required is a future where the hydrocarbon value chain is reimagined. One where the circular carbon economy is used as a framework for not only managing and reducing emissions, but also removing carbon from the atmosphere (Direct Air Capture) and turning it into a valuable resource, more so than it already is in a limited range of commercial applications.

Our innovative practices already help Aramco maintain our position as one of the lowest Upstream carbon intensity oil producers in our industry. We are also rolling out  — at industrial scale — technologies such as Carbon Capture, and Storage (CCS), capturing carbon at source to be used for important products such as plastics, fuels, and chemicals, or to support enhanced oil recovery in our fields.

And we are working on developing Saudi Arabia’s hydrogen infrastructure, supporting the country’s ambition to become the largest hydrogen producer in the world. Hydrogen is a potential game-changer in the energy transition; reliable, efficient, and emitting no greenhouse gases when burned — although, as a product primarily derived from natural gas, it still has a carbon footprint. However, our current focus is on manufacturing blue hydrogen, a production method in which the carbon emissions are captured and sequestered for storage, or for utilization in a number of useful processes, or transformed into new products. This method of decarbonizing industrial processes, such as hydrogen production, is called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), or Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS), and we are looking at scaling-up the technology and commoditizing this resource on a global scale.

Hydrogen — a new name for energy

Hydrogen is a naturally-occurring chemical element, the simplest and most abundant in the universe, but here on Earth it’s not freely available in high enough quantities (in the form of hydrogen gas, H2) to be commercially viable as a method of providing energy for domestic or industrial purposes.  This means that it needs to be separated from compounds formed with other elements, mostly from hydrocarbons, with the most common method of production being natural gas reforming — the reacting of natural gas with super-heated steam.

There has been increasing global momentum to view hydrogen as critical to a more efficient and affordable energy transition, with the potential to replace carbon-intensive fuels in a whole range of applications. These include generating power and heat, fueling trucks, and in the production processes of hard to abate industries such as construction, steel, and cement manufacturing.

Hydrogen may have the potential to replace some fuels in the construction and steel industries

As the market now moves from concept to reality — some $570 billion is set to be invested in hydrogen production, globally, by 2030 — we are leveraging our technology and innovation leadership, to establish the infrastructure needed to scale up blue hydrogen. For example, we commissioned a $12 billion facility to produce hydrogen, steam, and electricity at our Jazan refinery, while a significant amount of the gas in the Jafurah nonassociated unconventional gas field, due to commence operation in 2025, will potentially be used to produce hydrogen.

A fuel of the future

Hydrogen as a fuel has real potential to dramatically cut transport-related emissions, especially in heavy-industry vehicles such as those used in trucking and shipping. We are looking at how Aramco can make hydrogen cost-competitive and widely available for different types of heavy transport.

In June 2024, we signed definitive agreements alongside Geely and Renault Group to acquire a 10% equity interest in a company dedicated to hybrid powertrain technologies, which combines the benefits of both hydrogen and electric batteries to power a vehicle.  Aramco's planned investment aims to support the growth of the company, and contribute to key research and development across synthetic fuels solutions and next-generation hydrogen technologies.

We also built Saudi Arabia’s first hydrogen fueling station and are successfully operating a small fleet of hydrogen test vehicles (both cars and buses) in the often-challenging conditions of the local environment.

Hydrogen is also an essential component in SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) which is the aviation industry’s main avenue for cutting emissions from air travel. In this area, Aramco has a number of projects, both in research and in production, currently underway, one of which is its investment in OXCCU, a UK-based spin-off from Oxford University. The team at OXCCU have developed a one-step process for producing a ‘synthetic’ fuel, made from combining hydrogen and carbon dioxide (CO2), that’s described as ‘groundbreaking’, and have announced plans to launch a ‘world first’ demonstration plant at Oxford’s regional airport in September 2024.

A world first — making and exporting blue hydrogen

As game changing as hydrogen promises to be, there are still challenges to its widescale adoption. For one, hydrogen is tricky to transport, particularly over long distances. A highly-flammable gas, hydrogen needs to be cooled to -253°C to enable its transportation in a liquid state, and this temperature needs to be maintained throughout transit, which requires the use of expensive cryogenic (highly-insulated) tanks. Ammonia, however — made up of three parts hydrogen to one-part nitrogen — is easier and safer to transport, being less flammable and benefiting from an existing production and supply infrastructure.

In 2020, Aramco and the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, in partnership with SABIC, successfully shipped 40 tons of high-grade blue ammonia to Japan, where it was used to produce sero-carbon fuel to produce electricity. This ‘world-first’ project was an important demonstration of the full blue ammonia value chain — from converting hydrocarbons to hydrogen and then to ammonia, all the way through to the capture and use of the associated CO2 emissions. Fifty tons of CO2 were captured and either injected into oil wells to enhance production, or used to make methanol.

Then, in 2022, we partnered with SABIC AGRI-Nutrients to ship 25,000 tons of blue ammonia to South Korea, marking the world’s first commercial shipment of its kind.

As one of our next steps, we’re further exploring ways to transport, utilize, and certify blue hydrogen and ammonia, and dedicating more resources to studying back-cracking — the process of converting this blue ammonia back into hydrogen. This represents promising progress toward the creation of large-scale production facilities for hydrogen and ammonia in Saudi Arabia, which would also include widescale Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). 

Carbon as a commodity

While plans to create the largest CCUS hub in the Middle East are central to the development of a global blue hydrogen sector, captured CO2 can be used in many important ways — giving it the potential to have real concrete value as a resource in its own right.

We already have one of the Middle East’s largest CCUS projects in operation, which has the capacity to sequester 800,000 tons of CO2 a year at the Hawiyah gas processing plant, before transporting it to Uthmaniyah. From here, it is injected into the oil field reservoir (a process called Enhanced Oil Recovery), both securely capturing the carbon and supporting reservoir pressure, which helps boost production efficiency in depleted wells.

We’re also looking at how Aramco can scale-up the use of CO2 as a feedstock for chemicals such as methanol, and in processes such as concrete curing, which not only locks away CO2, but also makes better-performing, more durable, concrete. As a member of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) we’re investing in companies that are exploring ways to use CO2 as a raw material, such as Econic Technologies, whose catalyst systems allow captured CO2 to replace half of the fossil fuel-based raw materials in the production of polyols, the base for polyurethanes, which are used in products ranging from shoes to car parts to building insulation.

Re-forging the hydrocarbon value chain

Since inception, Aramco has innovated and adapted to evolving market conditions and technologies, all while following a clear vision — to invest in the future, while providing safe, affordable, and reliable energy to the world.

In addition to our core business of providing oil, gas, and chemicals, we are expanding our focus toward emerging sectors — not only in hydrogen, and carbon capture technologies, but also in nonmetallics, artificial intelligence, and renewables, for example — which are key components in the move to a decarbonized world and a more-sustainable future. 

In 2019, Aramco inaugurated the first hydrogen fueling station in Saudi Arabia

For more information on Aramco’s Upstream carbon intensity, and other emissions-related metrics, please read our 2023 Sustainability Report.