Wood is well-known as a global leader when it comes to consulting and engineering and the company has recently completed the front-end engineering and design (FEED) scope for Aramco’s Accelerated Carbon Capture and Sequestration (ACCS) first phase. This project is based in Saudi Arabia and it is expected to be the world’s largest carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) hub, once it is finished.

This project has set out a clear ambition for its first goal, which is to increase the reduction of carbon emissions which are being produced by their upstream operations, specifically Aramco gas plant facilities, which are situated near Jubail. This plant is based on the east coast of Saudi Arabia and alongside this aim, the project will also be looking to reduce emissions from third-party emitters.

To make all of this possible, the FEED project, which was recently completed, was finished by an estimated two-hundred engineers, who came from Wood’s global Projects and Consulting business units. Throughout this process, Wood was responsible for designing the greenfield dehydration and compression facilities, along with the large pipeline network. This specific part of the project included a 200+ kilometer dense-phase CO2 pipeline, which was created for the ACCS project. This project focuses on finding a way to transport 9 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of emissions and then go onto sequester it within onshore geological storage by 2027. Further to this, Aramco has issued plans to store up to 14 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of CO2 equivalent by 2035. This would certainly help Saudi Arabia achieve its goal of 44 MTPA by 2035.

Wood’s Executive President of Projects, Craig Shanaghey, commented, “We are proud to be at the forefront of designing the future of energy by leveraging our 20 years of experience in carbon capture engineering to bring the ACCS project to life, supporting Aramco as our long-term client on its energy security and transition ambitions. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has underlined the significant role CCS can potentially play in helping to reach the 2-degree goal set out in the Paris Agreement, and it is investments like this world-leading project that can support that progress and make a tangible difference to reduce the carbon emissions of heavy industries.”