today on Forbes, the slow greening of the world's biggest oil company. Amin Nasser, the CEO of Saudi Aramco, declared this year that the age of fossil fuels is far from over. He said, quote, Peak oil and gas is unlikely to come for some time, let alone 2030. We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them adequately, reflecting realistic demand assumptions. Of course, he would say that. He's the head of the world's biggest oil company, which is ranked number three on this year's Forbes Global 2000 list, down one spot from last year on lower oil prices. The Global 2000 list is our annual ranking of the world's largest public companies, which was released last week. As CEO of Aramco, Nasser oversees the production of more than 12 million barrels per day of oil and gas. Aramco is such a behemoth that both its output and $17 billion in net income is more than three times higher even than Exxon Mobil, which is down six spots to number

14 on this year's list Chevron number 22 and down four spots looks like a comparative pipsqueak with merely $20 billion in profits last year and a ramco isn't going anywhere with proven reserves of well over 200 billion barrels. It can keep that pace for decades to come so yes NASA is biased but the thing is he's not wrong renewable zero carbon energy is so far an addition not a transition for all the endless hype about the transition away from oil gas and coal. The reality is that the world has never relied more on carbon spewing energy sources than it does now. Nasser said quote in the real world the current transition strategy is visibly failing on most fronts so far. Renewables can't scale fast enough their upfront costs are too high and they are not as convenient for all of China's advances in erecting solar panels for example. It still burned a record 5 billion tons of coal last year 10 times us coal.

consumption. Electric vehicles now make up 19% of global car sales, yet global petroleum consumption continues to inch past 100 million barrels per day. According to Claudio Galimberti, an analyst at consultancy Rad Energy, Oil demand sticky and will continue to rise as low carbon alternatives are not yet sufficiently developed or economically competitive to offset the growing demand for transportation and industrial services. So it might surprise you to learn that Aramco, ironically, is already one of the world's biggest investors in the low carbon transition. Aramco has dedicated 10% of its 50 billion dollar a year in capital spending to renewables and launched the Aramco New Energies division. This year, they completed the Sudair solar project with 1.5 GW of capacity, while the 2.7 GW Schuba solar field will be completed next year. By 2030, Aramco promises 12 GW of solar and wind. The company is in talks with Spanish oil giant Repsol for a

stake in its Renewables business, building on an existing repol JV to make zero-carbon jet fuel using so-called green hydrogen and captured carbon dioxide. At Aramco's Juil refining complex, they are building a system to grab 9 million tons a year of CO2 that will complement an existing process that captures carbon emissions from an ethylene glycol plant and turns it into low-carbon methanol. Yet, if Aramco is going to deliver on NASA's promise to capture and sequester 44 million tons per year of CO2 by 2035, it will need some new tricks to hunt them down. Aramco has more than doubled funding to venture capital arm Aramco Ventures, with $4 billion available for investments. Among the most promising is a new investment of tens of millions of dollars that Aramco Ventures has made into a New Mexico-based startup called Spirius, born out of Los Alamos National Lab. Spirius' co-founders, Charles Kadu and Matt Lee, have developed a novel

technology that they claim absorbs CO2 from the air. And unlike competing CO2 capture Technologies, which rely on giant fans and compressors to suck in air, spiritus devices work passively as quiet as a tree. For full coverage, check out Christopher Helman's piece on forbes.com. This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in. [Music]

How Saudi Aramco Champions Net-Zero Solutions, While Still Pumping 12 Million Barrels Per Day

Forbes highlights success through the lens of business, entrepreneurship, wealth, investing and leadership with a focus on the people shaping our world.

Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
 
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com