“Through Namaat, we are attracting world-class partners who share our goal of continuous industrial development. These partnerships illustrate Saudi Arabia’s significant appeal to international companies and pave the way for new innovations in materials, processes and solutions,” said Aramco senior vice president of technical services, Ahmed Al-Sa’adi.

“Leveraging a range of finance, funding, tax and regulatory incentives available through the government’s Shareek program, we aim to drive competitive advantage and achieve benefits for the environment, our business, our partners and for the wider energy and chemicals sector.”

Among the MoUs signed is a deal with Solvay to pursue the development of advanced non-metallic materials, along with establishing a local composite value chain.

Three separate non-binding MoUs were also inked to evaluate carbon capture and sequestration opportunities and partnerships with Air Liquide, Halliburton and Saudi investment arm Public Investment Fund (PIF); Baker Hughes and PIF; and Linde, Schlumberger and PIF.

Three other agreements on engineering, procurement and construction services were penned with Samsung Engineering and Hyundai of South Korea and Saipem of Italy. Another was done with Armorock to validate the feasibility of developing and using plastic concrete products in building and construction applications.

Shell & AMG Recycling, along with Shell Catalysts & Technologies and Saudi-based United Company for Industry (UCI), also signed a trilateral MoU to evaluate the feasibility of building a catalyst manufacturing and recycling center in the Kingdom.

Author: Elaine Burridge, Freelance Journalist