Ready to deploy: How Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates can scale up carbon capture and storage in the Gulf

The policy brief outlines how Saudi Arabia and the UAE can leverage their geological storage potential and National Oil Companies to scale up carbon capture and storage (CCS). It identifies current project statuses, storage capacities, and recommends the creation of carbon management strategies, open-access storage hubs, and enduring financial incentives to decarbonize hard-to-abate industries and the power sector.

• Saudi Arabia and the UAE have established net-zero CO2 emission targets for 2060 and 2050, respectively, and both are expanding renewable and nuclear power to decarbonize their power sectors.
• The Gulf region possesses significant geological storage potential for CO2, with the Rub’al Khali sedimentary basin covering the UAE and southern Saudi Arabia representing the greatest capacity.
• Saudi Arabia's estimated CO2 storage potential includes 5.2 Gt in depleted gas reservoirs and between 40-318 Gt in the Rub’al-Khali basin; the UAE's potential includes 5.9 Gt in depleted gas reservoirs and 16.7 Gt in ‘undiscovered capacity’.
• Existing CCS projects in both countries currently capture up to 0.8 Mt/year of CO2: Saudi Arabia's Uthmaniyah project (since 2015) and the UAE's Al Reyadah project (since 2016).
• Saudi Arabia aims for 9 Mt/year of CCS from 2027 at the Jubail hub, increasing to 44 Mt/year by 2035, and requires new gas power plants to include CCS.
• The UAE's ADNOC targets 10 Mt/year of CO2 capture and storage by 2030, focusing initially on gas processing facilities such as the Habshan facility.
• CATF analysis estimates that full abatement of emissions from oil and natural gas production and processing in both countries would cost approximately $15 billion per year, with $6 billion of that specifically for CCS in gas processing, LNG production, and oil refining.
• A 'storage as a service' business model, involving the Gulf region acting as a CO2 storage hub for others via pipeline or ship, could add up to $1.2 billion in gross value by 2050.

APA

Lockwood, T., & Azadegan, O. (2023). Ready to deploy: How Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates can scale up carbon capture and storage in the Gulf. Clean Air Task Force. https://www.catf.us/2023/10/ready-deploy-how-saudi-arabia-united-arab-emirates-scale-up-carbon-capture-storage-gulf/

Chicago

Lockwood, Toby, and Olivia Azadegan. Ready to deploy: How Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates can scale up carbon capture and storage in the Gulf. Clean Air Task Force, 2023. https://www.catf.us/2023/10/ready-deploy-how-saudi-arabia-united-arab-emirates-scale-up-carbon-capture-storage-gulf/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Lockwood |first1=Toby |last2=Azadegan |first2=Olivia |title=Ready to deploy: How Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates can scale up carbon capture and storage in the Gulf |publisher=Clean Air Task Force |date=12 October 2023 |url=https://www.catf.us/2023/10/ready-deploy-how-saudi-arabia-united-arab-emirates-scale-up-carbon-capture-storage-gulf/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{lockwood2023ready, author = {Lockwood, Toby and Azadegan, Olivia}, title = {{Ready to deploy: How Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates can scale up carbon capture and storage in the Gulf}}, institution = {Clean Air Task Force}, year = {2023}, month = oct, url = {https://www.catf.us/2023/10/ready-deploy-how-saudi-arabia-united-arab-emirates-scale-up-carbon-capture-storage-gulf/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }