The Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) announced the signing of three Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with leading American companies to advance the development of potential lower-carbon energy solutions.

The MoUs were signed in the presence of Minister of Energy for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al Saud, and US Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm.

The MoUs signed by Aramco include:

Aeroseal

Following a successful trial of Aeroseal’s technology in Saudi Arabia, Aramco and Aeroseal agreed to explore opportunities to accelerate the deployment of Aeroseal’s technology in the company’s building fleet and elsewhere; pursue joint testing of building ductwork and envelopes nationwide to uncover the most prominent opportunities; commercialize the technology in novel applications such as gas pipelines; and localize Aeroseal’s supply chain in Saudi Arabia.

Spiritus

With Spiritus, Aramco agreed to explore opportunities in the field of direct air capture. Spiritus’ novel approach to direct air capture could address the major cost challenges of current direct air capture approaches and includes reducing energy needs, passive air collection, and a proprietary sorbent material to potentially remove carbon from the atmosphere at up to a tenfold increase in adsorption efficiency compared to existing methods.

Rondo

Aramco and Rondo agreed to explore deployment of heat batteries in Aramco’s global facilities to reduce operating costs and support emissions reduction initiatives. The companies have started engineering studies for a first industrial scale deployment of Rondo Heat Batteries that could contribute to reduction of emissions from Aramco facilities, with subsequent scale up to 1GWh.

Ali A. Al-Meshari, Senior Vice President of Technology, Oversight & Coordination, Aramco, said: “Aramco has stated its ambition to achieve net zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 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 programs. We see the technologies of Aeroseal, Spiritus’, and Rondo to have the potential to scale globally, and specifically in the Middle East.”