Amin Abbas

DUBAI: ADIPEC 2021, the global energy industry’s largest, most important and influential event, which was held in Abu Dhabi from Nov. 15-18, took place immediately after COP26.

The event was the first global energy forum to examine the key outcomes of the UN climate meeting and how they will shape future policy and business environments of the energy industry following the challenges of COVID-19.

The four-day business-critical platform was held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates, and hosted by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and supported by the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, the UAE Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology, the Department of Municipalities and Transport, the Abu Dhabi Chamber, the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism and the Department of Education and Knowledge.

ADIPEC 2021 hosted a series of conferences providing strategic and technical insights, including the ADIPEC 2021 Strategic Conference featuring more than 1,000 expert speakers, including over 160 Ministers, CEOs, and policy influencers, who will participate in over 160 conference sessions.

During the event, four themes were discussed throughout the week, including new market dynamics in a changing energy world; fueling the future: the new energy agenda; building the energy company of the future: new business models and investment flows; and transformational technologies: unlocking the engines of change.

ADIPEC 2021 also hosted the newly launched Smart Manufacturing Conference providing a unique platform for the manufacturing industry to gain insights into the energy transition and identify the challenges and opportunities for manufacturing in the drive to net zero-carbon energy.

Other conferences included the Technical Conference, Downstream Technical Conference, Offshore and Marine Conference and the ADIPEC Forum for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Young ADIPEC, the annual youth outreach initiative by ADIPEC, has continued its successful work to promote the energy sector as a source of fulfilling careers for young Emiratis, welcoming 500 students from 20 schools to its 9th edition.

During the 11th ADIPEC Awards, which received more than 700 entries from over 50 countries, Dr Fatih Birol, who has served as Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) since 2015, was presented with the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award, among other awards recipients.

The Digitalisation Zone provided insights on big data, cloud and machine learning with 100 specialist companies showcasing the latest ways digitalisation can enhance the energy value chain. Meanwhile, the newly launched Smart Manufacturing Zone highlighted how the impact of smart technologies is being felt across the complete manufacturing ecosystem.

ADIPEC 2021 also provided a forum for several landmark industry deals. These included the $6.2 billion agreement between Borealis and ADNOC to expand Borouge’s output, and the deal between Petronas and Baker Hughes to collaborate on technology to support the energy transition. In addition, a major new green hydrogen venture between ADNOC and TAQA was agreed, and a partnership between Mitsui, GS Energy, and ADNOC to develop a world-scale low-carbon blue ammonia facility was also concluded.

Exclusively to Arab News Japan, Yoshio Tanaka, Deputy General Manager, Administration & CSR at JAPAN OIL DEVELOPMENT CO., LTD. (JODCO) said: “We mainly featured the renewable energy such as geo-thermal, wind, CCUS and hydrogen, because we have 5 business pillars towards a net zero carbon society. Especially we focus on hydrogen and aim to expand our energy business to include the production and supply of hydrogen.”

“In order to let visitors know about what INPEX/JODCO is, we exhibited our exploration and production of the worldwide activities.”

“Finally, we also exhibited our CSR activities such as Kumon, training for university students from UAE, Judo competition and so on. These are also very important activities for us to build rapport with UAE much stronger,” he added.

About the challenges that JODCO faced regarding their participation at ADIPEC 2021, Yoshio Tanaka said: “We were very careful about COVID-19 measures such as hand disinfection, keeping social distance, wearing masks all the time and having regular PCR tests during ADIPEC. We’d protected ourselves as well as visitors from the infection of COVID-19.”

About distinguishing (JODCO) participation at ADIPEC 2021 different from their previous events, Yoshio Tanaka said: “COVID-19 prevented us from being held ADIPEC in 2020. But the threat of virus has been currently subsiding in UAE, we strongly had been feeling the importance to talk to counterparts in face to face. We thought that the holding ADIPEC this year would be a big chance to meet with them in the venue, so we decided to participate at it.”

“In addition, we understand that it is very important to continue to disseminate information about our company to the world through this event that energy companies and companies related to energy would be gathering from the world,” he added.

Yasunori Aizawa (Associated Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology) from the Japanese Pavilion said about their participation at ADIPEC 2021: “In every year, the Japanese pavilion propose some concepts that could lead to collaborations between Japan & UAE, this year we proposed the concept of (Moving Exhibition Island) where it’s a self-sustainable Island & Japan known for developing cutting-edge technology and we are building clean energy technology to the island to show the good technology of Japan to everyone around the world.”

“We have not started contracting this island yet, but in the near future hopefully we make this concept of the island to showcase this cutting-edge technology to the world”.

“Also, we are looking forward to work on the concept for Bio-technology as the environment around the earth is being suffered by the changes in the climate such as Global warming. So, Bio-technology sustain the eco-system around the earth and we have to corporate this technology to the industry so that it can be more environmentally friendly,” he added. 

ADIPEC 2022 will return to ADNEC in Abu Dhabi as an in-person event from 7-10 November 2022.