Wood Group finalises first section of world’s largest CCS in Saudi
- The oilfield services business is a major contractor on Aramco’s ACCS project
- State-owned Aramco is one of the most valuable publicly-traded companies
John Wood Group has completed the first phase of engineering work on what is expected to be the world’s largest carbon capture and sequestration hub.
The oilfield services business is a major contractor on Aramco’s Accelerated Carbon Capture and Sequestration (ACCS) project near Jubail, Saudi Arabia.
It has designed the greenfield dehydration, compression facilities and a major pipeline network, which includes a more-than 200 kilometres long carbon dioxide pipeline.
Big deal: John Wood Group is a major contractor on Aramco’s Accelerated Carbon Capture and Sequestration (ACCS) project near Jubail, Saudi Arabia
By 2027, Aramaco wants the pipelines to transport 9 million tonnes of emissions per annum from its gas plant facilities and from third-party emitters before sequestering them within onshore geological storage.
The state-owned energy giant, one of the most valuable publicly-traded companies, is seeking to store up to 14 million tonnes annually of CO2 equivalent by 2035.
Craig Shanaghey, Wood’s executive president of Projects, said: ‘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.’
He added: ‘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.’
Wood Group’s announcement comes a few days after it agreed to acquisition talks with Dubai-based engineering firm Sidara.
The company received an offer worth about £1.6billion from Sidara after rejecting three previous takeover bids on the grounds they were too low.
Following feedback from shareholders, Wood Group has decided to engage with Sidara to determine whether a concrete bid can be ‘made on the same financial terms’ as the latest proposal.
It added: ‘There can be no certainty that an offer will be made. Further announcements will be made as appropriate.’
Headquartered in Aberdeen, Wood Group employs over 35,000 people across 60 countries who provide consultation and engineering services for the energy and materials sectors.
In its latest full-year results, the firm reported rebounding to a $38million operating profit thanks to a lack of impairment charges and headline turnover growing by 8.7 per cent to $5.9billion.
Wood Group shares were 0.3 per cent higher at 198.2p on late Monday morning and have grown by around 48 per cent over the past year.
