SPEECH: Remarks by Amin Nasser, Aramco president and CEO, at the China Development Forum 2023

Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, xià wǔ  hǎo, and good afternoon.

It is wonderful to be back in Beijing with the dear friends and close partners we have missed so much. We reunite in the shadow of COVID, conflict in Europe, and global economic headwinds, including an energy crisis. 

Adding to the complexity is the global energy transition, which desperately needs some realism and clarity. So we welcome the pragmatic thoughts of His Excellency President Xi on this. 

We agree with his view that conventional energy sources and alternatives will have to work in parallel for decades to come. We also agree that China cannot achieve its climate change mitigation goals at the expense of energy security. 

And his principle of “building the new before discarding the old” really struck a chord with us.

In fact, Aramco is already working on three major strategies to support China’s energy and development priorities with these  realities in mind. 

First, expanding our oil production capacity by a million barrels per day to 13 million barrels by 2027 will strengthen China’s long-term energy security. So will increasing our gas production by more than fifty percent by 2030, which should release an additional million barrels of oil per day for export.

Second, we are determined to further reduce the already low carbon intensity of our oil production, as well as our methane intensity. We are also working on solutions like advanced carbon capture and storage, and circular carbon economy technologies. 

Furthermore, we recently launched a one and a half billion dollar venture capital sustainability fund to invest in advanced technologies that will help all of us move closer to a net-zero emissions future.

China’s venture capital space offers important investment opportunities to stimulate the technology development and innovation required. Meanwhile, since cars with conventional engines are likely to dominate roads for quite some time, we are developing more efficient and lower emission engines and hybrid systems.

That is why we have signed a letter of intent to be part of a new entity being created by Geely and Renault. All these initiatives can help China meet its emissions reduction goals.

Third, we are steadily adding lower carbon energy to our portfolio, especially blue hydrogen and blue ammonia, electrofuels, and renewables. And we are evaluating entry into liquified natural gas as well. As the energy transition evolves, there is also the critical issue of Materials Transition. 

Reducing emissions from hard-to-abate sectors like steel and aluminum, cement and concrete is essential to China’s high-quality development. We are partnering with Baosteel to produce steel plates in Saudi Arabia with a lower carbon footprint. 

In fact, this is a great example of the multiple and highly attractive opportunities for Chinese companies in the Kingdom in a variety of energy and non-energy areas. More broadly, we are developing advanced, more sustainable materials such as those based on polymers and carbon to complement conventional ones, while reducing their high cost.

We have also launched a new center of excellence for non-metallic technologies called NEXCEL, right here in Beijing. In other words, we want to be an all-inclusive source of energy and chemicals for China’s long-term energy security and China’s high- quality development.

That is why we are doubling down on China’s energy supply, including new lower carbon products; chemicals; and advanced materials, all supported by emissions reduction technologies.

In particular, we see a major win-win opportunity to build a world-leading, integrated downstream sector in China, with special emphasis on the high conversion of liquids directly into chemicals as part of our broader liquid-to-chemicals business expansion plans.

Indeed, today we are signing definitive agreements with North Huajin Chemical and Panjin Xincheng to begin construction on a state-of-the-art integrated refinery and petrochemical complex in Liaoning Province.

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Aramco’s view of the energy future, and the most realistic path to get there, closely aligns with China’s.

And, like China, we think in decades not quarters.

That is why your long-term energy security and your high-quality development are among our highest priorities, to the horizon and even beyond.

Thank you, and xiè xie.