Aramco signs 3 MoUs during visit of US Secretary of Energy

The signing ceremony

Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Saudi Aramco) announced today, May 18, signing three Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with leading American companies to advance the development of potential lower-carbon energy solutions.

The MoUs were signed on May 17 in the presence of Saudi Minister of Energy, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al Saud, and US Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm. 

The MoUs signed by Aramco included:

Aeroseal

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. This came after a successful trial of Aeroseal’s technology 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.

Both 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 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.”

Aramco 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,” Al-Meshari added.