Abu Dhabi signals global ambition with oil hike

abu dhabi — Abu Dhabi signalled its ambitions to send more oil and gas around the world as it woos investors to fields at home and hunts for assets abroad.

As state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) taps partnerships to raise domestic oil output, it’s seeking refineries and other assets overseas to ensure future demand for its crude, chief executive officer Dr Sultan Al Jaber said on Tuesday. The emirate is among Middle Eastern producers bucking a global trend of tight spending caps to plow billions of dollars into new sources of both oil and gas.

Adnoc’s appetite for global growth extends to liquefied natural gas, with a plan to increase export capacity once Abu Dhabi becomes self-sufficient in the fuel, according to Al Jaber.

“We are working on an expansion plan for our LNG facility, which will be supplemented by us exploring other LNG opportunities beyond our borders,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview.

Adnoc aims to turn the UAE into a net exporter of gas by 2030, and to add almost 2 million barrels of daily crude production capacity by then. The UAE is among Opec nations targeting expansion as several other large producers such as Iran and Venezuela see their output disrupted by sanctions and internal strife.

“We want Adnoc to be the company of the future, to conduct business like an international oil company while we take advantage and leverage the fact that we are the national oil company,” Al Jaber said. Arabian Gulf producers have traditionally partnered with the foreign companies whose forebears discovered the region’s oil a century ago.

Adnoc has received 39 bids for new exploration projects that will be awarded by early next year, Al Jaber said.