The passionate pursuit of decarbonisation solutions

Adif Zulkifli, the Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of PETRONAS Upstream, talked about how carbon capture and storage is a key lever in PETRONAS’ Net Zero Carbon Emissions (NZCE) by 2050 pathway and how it would assist the energy player, as well as Malaysia’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

It’s been a year since the launch of the NZCE by 2050 pathway at ADIPEC. How is PETRONAS transforming its operations to meet its 2050 NZCE targets?

Our 2050 NZCE targets are integral in supporting our current business resilience as well as represent opportunities for new topline creation. Sustainability is expected to run deep and be embedded in our strategy, culture, system, processes and day to day activities.

Across PETRONAS’ integrated business, our decarbonisation efforts span over four levers; namely zero routine flaring and venting, energy efficiency, electrification and carbon capture and storage (CCS). We are on track to meeting our 2024 target of capping our emissions to 49.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) within our Malaysia operations. 

What role can CCS play to reduce the emissions from PETRONAS, and in the mid-term to long term future, from industry emitters?   

CCS plays an essential role to decarbonise large volumes of emissions safely. PETRONAS is pursuing CCS as a key lever to decarbonise our own operations while also extending CCS solution to the regional emitters.

At PETRONAS Upstream, this comes into play through our Kasawari CO2 Sequestration (CCS) project offshore Sarawak, which is expected to reduce carbon dioxide volumes emitted via flaring by 3.3 MtCO2e annually, making it one of the largest CCS offshore projects in the world.

Spurred from our own internal needs, PETRONAS believes that we can further extend our capabilities and expertise to provide CCS as a service solution in enabling local and foreign industries to decarbonise by 2030 onwards, particularly in the hard-to-abate industrial sectors.

We need to collaborate with other corporations and nations to define and deploy new value chains to fully realise the benefits of CCS.

With regards to the value chain, PETRONAS has been developing partnerships across the entire CCS value chain since the beginning of 2022. How have the partnerships evolved?

PETRONAS has forged collaborations with selected partners as part of our deliberate steps to build a sustainable portfolio to support the transition to a lower carbon future. Our collaborations have evolved progressively so as to advance with strategic partners into the next phase via development agreements and other similar arrangements One example is our development agreement with Total Energies and Mitsui which covers all aspects of CCS value chain and will pave the way for the first-of- its- kind integrated CCS solution for industries in the Asia Pacific region.

We are proud to work with forward-looking partners in developing solutions through CCS to move us closer towards a lower carbon future.

Is PETRONAS’ efforts in line with Malaysia’s aspiration to meet its Paris Accord commitment? 

Malaysia’s National Energy Transition Roadmap has recognised CCS as one of the energy transition levers that will be pivotal to meet the net-zero aspiration. This makes CCS an important component of Malaysia’s response to the energy transition.

We hope that the development of CCS value chains will lay the foundation for such practice in Malaysia, serving both domestic and international industrial customers, plus potentially becoming a new source of growth for PETRONAS.

PETRONAS’ target is in line with Malaysia’s position on CCS, hence we are working hard to build a robust CCS ecosystem through the development of three CCS hubs in Malaysia, which will have a potential storage capacity of 15 MTPA by 2030.

Before we end, how has PETRONAS’ investment strategy been recalibrated since to ensure your milestones will be realised?

We are committed to delivering on our NZCE 2050 pathway. To achieve this purpose, PETRONAS will be allocating 20 per cent of our capital expenditure through to 2026 for decarbonisation projects and the development of clean energy solutions.