Oil giant Aramco gears up for a low-carbon future

Aramco, the world's largest oil company, is looking to diversify its investments and create new outlets for crude oil production as Asian countries move away from fossil fuels.

Aramco's Ras Tanura refinery in eastern Saudi Arabia [ARAMCO]

DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia — Across a sweeping, curved video wall that nearly envelops the entire control room stretch the inner workings of the world's largest energy company, spanning more than 15,000 kilometers (9,320 miles) of pipelines throughout the crude oil grid that crisscrosses Saudi Arabia.

Dubbed the Oil Supply, Planning and Scheduling (Ospas) system, this screen is where every single drop of Aramco oil throughout the kingdom is managed and controlled.

On Dec. 4, a group of journalists from Korea, China, Japan and Malaysia gathered at the heart of the world's most profitable company in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, as part of a two-day visit to its headquarters, research facilities and downstream operation sites in the Dammam region.

It is the first occasion of its kind specific to Asian press, according to Aramco.

Asian nations represent roughly 80 percent of Aramco’s crude exports. Recently, the Saudi state-run oil supplier has been putting renewed focus on the region with a stream of downstream projects and equity investments taking place in China, Korea and Malaysia, in an effort to diversify its portfolio and create new outlets for crude production.

Aramco subsidiary S-Oil's $7 billion Shaheen project in Ulsan, which marked Korea's largest foreign investment in a single project, is a noteworthy example.

Along with sustainability, reliability has been a recurring theme throughout the visit.

Aramco, representing one tenth of the world's oil production, holds a firm grip on the global crude supply. As the concept of energy security has gained significance amid rising geopolitical tensions worldwide, the Saudi oil producer prides itself on not having missed any shipments over 90 years.

The Ospas system, which looks over all of the company's hydrocarbon operations across Saudi Arabia, is the centerpiece of that achievement.

Aramco's control room for Oil Supply, Planning and Scheduling, or Ospas system, in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia [SAUDI ARAMCO]

When journalists visited the operations coordination center, the focal point of the Ospas system, the expansive control room was nearly surrounded by a huge video wall filled with real-time data from production sites, pipelines, terminals and power generation plants.

Aramco’s 12 export terminals are also under the center’s control, with images of vessels displayed on the video wall that indicate plans and the status of each vessel's loading operations.

The system, through which every drop of Aramco oil throughout the country is controlled and monitored, gives the company the competitive edge it needs to remain the most reliable supplier of energy, an employee at the center said.

Aramco is also making steady progress with the development and deployment of future technologies as well, which is mainly taking shape at its 4IR center and the Expec ARC.

The firm’s 4IR Center, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution Center, is responsible for developing and handling cutting-edge digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, 3-D printing and carbon emissions reduction.

Its AI Hub receives more than 7 billion points from Aramco operations within Saudi Arabia to generate big operational data, which can be used to improve efficiency and monitor any anomalies in facilities and products.

The 4IR Center’s robotics and unmanned aerial vehicle section, also one of its key pillars, spearheads the development and deployment of robots and drones. More than 100 applications have been deployed for various activities, including flare stack inspection and emergency response, so far.

Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics’ autonomous robot dog, jointly developed with Aramco, is one of the latest additions.

An inspection robot developed by Boston Dynamics and Aramco is deployed at an Aramco operation site in Saudi Arabia. [ARAMCO]

The four-legged robot patrols production facilities to collect images and send data to engineers. While only one is currently deployed in the field, Aramco plans to increase that number in the future.

Meanwhile, Aramco’s major research and development (R&D) activities are mainly carried out at the Expec ARC — which stands for the Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Center-Advanced Research Center.

Some 800 researchers from 14 countries are taking part in a range of R&D projects at the 54,800-square-meter (590,000-square-foot) center. Major areas of focus involve carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), hydrogen, drilling technologies and more.

Aramco's Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Center-Advanced Research Center in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia [ARAMCO]

CCUS serves a significant role in Aramco’s venture toward net zero emission, and the center has been running a CCUS project since 2006 aimed at assessing the feasibility of capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide (CO2).

A carbon capture plant, which has a capacity of 800,000 tons of CO2 per year, was installed in Hawiyah as part of a pilot project to enhance oil recovery using captured CO2. The carbon dioxide, when injected under the surface, can help extract more hydrocarbons from the ground.

This is the largest enhanced oil recovery project in the Middle East, according to an Expec-ARC scientist.

Saudi Arabia has undergone many rapid changes over the past several years, and Aramco was no exception.

An executive at Ras Tanura Refinery, the largest and oldest refinery in the country, said that one of the latest changes at the facility was the establishment of a clean fuel division. The addition of the clean fuel division, on which the complex has been running since January of this year, is expected to help the refinery better adhere to global standards and specifications for petroleum products.

The nearly 80-year-old facility has a refining capacity of 550 million barrels per day, which makes it one of the 10 largest refineries in the world.

Aramco aims to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, while the Saudi Arabian government is also pushing to reduce the country’s reliance on crude sales under its Vision 2030 program with a net-zero target year of 2060.

Pragmatism, however, remains at the center of Aramco’s vision going forward. The company expects demand for conventional energy to stay strong for a while, especially within developing countries.

Its sustainability initiative will serve as an opportunity to facilitate and drive the global energy transition “at the right pace that takes needs of nations, affordability and energy security into account,” said Aramco’s downstream president, Mohammed Y. Al Qahtani during a Dec. 6 interview at the company's Dhahran headquarters.

Al Qahtani emphasized Asia’s huge potential as a growth market, particularly in terms of petroleum and petrochemical demand.

Aramco CEO Amin H. Nasser also stressed that “global transition policies must be more pragmatic, orderly, and inclusive” in his remarks during Energy Asia in Malaysia six months ago, calling for “a new approach to the energy transition that reflects Asia's unique priorities.”

Saudi Aramco currently handles 250 billion barrels of oil reserves and runs the world’s largest onshore and offshore oil fields, both of which are located in Saudi Arabia. It can sustainably produce 12 million barrels of crude per day and plans to boost that figure to 13 million barrels by 2027.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]