(Reuters) – U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will visit Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates next week to work on “climate cooperation” and other issues, two Biden administration officials told Reuters on Friday.
The visit will run from Tuesday to Thursday, with Granholm visiting the UAE first, one of the officials said. It will be her first trip to the region as secretary.
“The visit is a continuation of the longstanding partnership between the US and this region,” the officials said.
“In particular, for the Department of Energy, it will advance the work both countries are doing on climate cooperation and to diversify the energy economy.”
Granholm will take part in a meeting of the Net-Zero Producers Forum, a group of countries representing 40% of global oil and gas production, including the US, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the sources said.
The group, which works on ways to reduce emissions such as combating methane and deploying clean energy, was founded in 2021.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are both members of OPEC, which is debating whether to extend production cuts.
The Net-Zero meeting was planned well in advance and Granholm does not plan to discuss oil policy with colleagues during the trip, one of the sources said.
The Biden administration and Saudi Arabia are nearing an agreement on U.S. security guarantees and civilian nuclear assistance, even as an Israeli-Saudi normalization deal, proposed as part of a “grand bargain” in the Middle East, remains elusive, sources said this month to Reuters.
Those talks are being led on the American side by White House and State Department officials, but not by Granholm.
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