RIYADH: Oil giant Saudi Aramco took advantage of a meeting of business leaders ahead of the G20 summit of world leaders to sign an agreement with Indonesian energy company Pertamina to explore cooperation across the hydrogen and ammonia value chain.

The memorandum of understanding was signed on the sidelines of the so-called B20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, as both Saudi Arabia and the host country look to achieve a net-zero target by 2060.

The MoU includes a pre-feasibility study aimed at evaluating the potential for cooperation in the development of the clean ammonia and hydrogen value chain.

The understanding also includes the possibility of carbon capture, use and storage at the existing Pertamina Group facilities and other agreed potential sites.

The preliminary feasibility study, which will be conducted over the next two years, will also explore the investment feasibility of developing commercial structures for clean ammonia and hydrogen in Indonesia.

“As a company, we aspire to achieve net GHG emissions in Scope 1 and 2 across our wholly owned operating assets by 2050,” said Mohammed Al-Qahtani, senior vice president of Aramco’s Downstream Company.

Saudi Aramco had pledged to achieve net-zero targets by 2050, 10 years before the kingdom’s net-zero target.

Al-Qahtani added, “Our work in developing new pathways for ammonia and hydrogen energy will be pivotal in achieving this goal while helping to achieve an affordable, equitable and more sustainable transition for all.”

Nicke Widyawati, Director of Pertamina, said the energy transition should not jeopardize energy security and affordability, especially for countries that rely heavily on fossil fuels.

“Hydrogen and ammonia are expected to play a major role in a future climate-neutral economy, enabling zero-emission power generation, heavy transportation, heating and industrial processes,” Widyawati said.

Last week, during the United Nations Climate Summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman announced that the ministry had teamed up with Aramco to create a carbon capture and storage center as the kingdom steadily continues its journey toward sustainability.

Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said that the new carbon capture and storage center will be on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia in Jubail.

Al-Nasser added that the center’s storage capacity will reach 9 million tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2027.

Inside the B20 event, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos used a pre-recorded speech to urge world leaders not to think of sustainability policies as detrimental to economic growth.

“Let’s not get bogged down in an either/or thinking mindset,” he said, adding: “Many business and government leaders want to be bold to reduce environmental damage, but they fear it will drive up costs and hurt growth, but we now know that it doesn’t stop Smart action against climate change can not only do bad things happen, but it can also improve resource efficiency, advance new technology, reduce uncertainty, and lead to new opportunities.”

Bezos reiterated his pledge to provide all Amazon operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, and said the company is working to convert its delivery fleet to electric vehicles.

It also set the criteria by which the Bezos Earth Fund will provide grants worth $10 billion by 2030.

“This includes phasing out internal combustion engines, removing carbon from steel and cement, increasing food crop yields, reducing food losses and enabling indigenous communities to manage tropical forests,” the businessman said, adding: “For each of these factors we are trying to determine how close Who are the positive turning points and what are the barriers that we can help remove in order to get past these points.”

Also featured at the conference was Elon Musk, who is negotiating a turbulent start to his tenure as Twitter’s CEO, including confusion over the so-called “blue label” system.

While participating in a discussion via the video link, Musk said it was “no brainer” that the social networking site needs to focus more on video content, and that this should benefit users.

“Twitter is willing to give a share of the profits to content creators to make a living,” he said.

Speaking about the controversies surrounding his tenure in the organization, he said, “There is no way to make everyone happy, that’s for sure.”

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair used a pre-recorded speech at the event to insist that the world of the 21st century represented a “completely new economy”.

“As well as people who are educated and able to develop the skills of the future and who understand the way this technological revolution is going to work,” he said.

Blair argued that technology would not only change the way people live and work, but “every culture”, and huge investments were needed not only in education but also in health care.

“We’ve seen how much damage a pandemic can cause, not just to people’s health – 15 million excess deaths worldwide – but to the trillions of dollars lost in the pandemic,” he said, adding: “If we produce better health, it will add trillions more to the economy.” Global.

“Better health means better productivity equals higher growth.”