UAE’s Adnoc announces $8bn gas expansion, as it mulls Hormuz bypass
GCC News
The UAE’s state-owned energy giant, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), said on Monday it will invest $8bn to expand its gas business, doubling down on increasing capacity after the Gulf state pulled out of the Saudi Arabian-led energy alliance, Opec.
Adnoc said it plans to build a new domestic natural gas processing unit at the country’s largest natural gas processing facility, Habshan, in addition to a new gas export facility at Ruwais.
Separately, Adnoc Gas’s CFO, Peter van Driel, told Bloomberg on Monday that the company was also weighing plans to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility outside the Strait of Hormuz. That facility would be in addition to the facility at Ruwais that Adnoc Gas is building to more than double its export capacity to about 15 million tonnes a year.
Regional Impact
The move comes at a time when the Gulf’s LNG powerhouse, Qatar, has declared a force majeure on LNG shipments through the autumn as a result of the US-Israeli war on Iran. Qatar relies on vessels to ship gas in liquefied form.
Iran and the US are locked in negotiations over the status of the Strait of Hormuz, the critical corridor through which roughly 25 percent of the world’s energy passes.
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Qatar resumed some LNG shipments after the US and Iran extended a ceasefire in June, but Qatari vessels have been attacked while transiting Oman’s territorial waters in recent months.
The UAE’s vessels have also been struck by Iran, but the Gulf state has taken a more risk-prone approach to sending vessels through the Strait of Hormuz with their ship tracking signals turned off.
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