SABIC Vice Chairman and CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA), Yousef Al-Benyan, called on the chemical sector in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries to direct business and operating models towards achieving the objectives of the circular economy, decarbonization and overcoming fundamental structural challenges. .
During his participation in the second session of the (GPCA) Forum for Leaders, in Dubai, under the slogan “New Horizons in 2022: Transformation in the Regional Industry”, he highlighted the significant and tangible impact of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and applying the concept of a circular economy to carbon on the value provided to shareholders, explaining that The decarbonization of the Gulf chemical sector is very important compared to other industrial sectors, as the chemical industry in itself is a key enabler for decarbonization of national oil companies, stressing the need to reflect on this challenge more strategically and with great focus, identifying three priority areas of transformation for the industry Chemicals, namely partnerships, collaboration, flexibility, and new business and operating models.
In his answer to how Gulf companies are adopting these priorities, Al-Benyan pointed to the importance of focusing on talent and technology, stressing the need for a global approach to attract and retain the best talent, calling at the same time to the need to provide a sustainable source of outstanding talent locally.
He said: We have to admit that the Gulf chemical companies in general are users of technologies. And that as the resource advantage diminishes in the future, the gap between technology developers and users will widen.
This session of the Forum follows its first session last year, which witnessed the participation of regional leaders and discussion of lessons learned from the pandemic, providing a unified message on the importance of resilience, speed of recovery, and preparedness to face future challenges.
It is noteworthy that SABIC revealed its carbon neutrality roadmap in 2021, as it developed a strategy to decarbonize its operations by 2050, in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement, defining the roadmap through five pathways to decarbonization, which are reliability, energy efficiency, improvements, and energy Renewables, electrification, carbon capture, green or blue hydrogen.
