On Saturday 4 March 2023, Claudio Descalzi, Eni Chief Executive Officer, and his Excellency Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, ADNOC Managing Director and Group CEO, signed in Abu Dhabi a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which outlines a framework of cooperation for future joint projects on energy transition, sustainability and decarbonization. The MoU was signed in the presence of the President of the Council of Ministers, Giorgia Meloni, and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates. Through this agreement, Eni and ADNOC will explore potential opportunities in the areas of renewable energy, blue and green hydrogen, carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), in the reduction of greenhouse gas and methane gas emissions, energy efficiency, routine gas flaring reduction and the Global Methane Pledge, to support global energy security and a sustainable energy transition. In addition, they will evaluate areas of cooperation for sustainable development and promoting the spread of a culture of sustainability within the energy industry and its stakeholders.
In September 2022 the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and Claudio Descalzi, Eni's Chief Executive Officer, met to jointly analyze the progress of the company's activities in the Emirate and discuss projects, areas of common interest and collaboration, with the aim to accelerate the existing development project and the time-to-market of new exploration discoveries and international activities, in line with the common decarbonization strategy and with the purpose to contribute to increasing worldwide gas supply. They also discussed the acceleration of the multi-billion-dollar Ghasha project. The project is estimated to hold significant recoverable gas and is expected to produce more than 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day (bcfd) in addition to more than 120,000 barrels of high-value oil and condensates per day.
In September 2021 we signed with Mubadala Petroleum a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at identifying cooperation opportunities in the energy transition sector, including the fields of hydrogen and carbon capture, utilization and storage, that align with their respective decarbonization targets. The scope of the cooperation covers potential joint opportunities in the Middle East, North Africa, South East Asia, Europe and other regions of mutual interest. This agreement marks a further tangible step in line with Eni's commitment towards carbon neutrality by 2050. We aim for operational excellence in our activities, reducing direct CO2 emissions from operating assets. We develop new technologies to capture, store and use CO2 to bolster our decarbonization strategy. Specifically, we are working with ADNOC to build a carbon capture and storage plant and an enhanced oil recovery project in the BAB, to reduce emissions to 360 thousand tonnes per year. We have also launched a project to electrify the Lower Zakum, Umm Shaif / Nasr and Dalma fields, aiming at further decreasing emissions by 200 thousand tonnes per year.
