Adnoc to ramp up investments in US gas sector

Reuters/Callaghan O'Hare

The international investment arm of UAE state oil company Adnoc will soon make a significant investment in US natural gas, Adnoc CEO Sultan Al Jaber said on Tuesday.

The UAE is a member of the Opec+ producer group and one of the world’s top oil producers. Adnoc’s wholly-owned international investment arm XRG has about $80 billion in assets and Reuters reported last week the UAE was considering options for an XRG IPO.

“It is time to make energy great again,” he told the world’s largest annual gathering of energy executives in Houston, mirroring the Make America Great Again slogan of US President Donald Trump.

“Over the next few months and foreseeable future you will see very large and significant investment by XRG in the US,” he said.

XRG would invest throughout the gas supply chain, from exploration and development through distribution, and wanted to be a one-stop shop for gas, he said.

Trump has reversed some of the energy policies of his predecessor Joe Biden as he overhauls government in the early weeks of his presidency. Trump has exhorted the industry to maximise production, although under Biden there were few checks on production and oil and gas output hit record levels.

Trump ordered the withdrawal of the US from the United Nations’ Paris Climate Agreement in January, removing the world’s biggest historic emitter from global efforts to fight climate change for the second time in a decade.

Al Jaber said it was time for pragmatic energy policy and actions as the world needs all forms of energy supply to meet rising demand.

Oil demand would reach 109 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2035, up from 103 million bpd now, he said. Global power demand would rise 70 percent to 15,000 gigawatts from 9,000GW, he said.

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The race for supremacy in artificial intelligence (AI) worldwide was essentially an energy play, he said, due to the huge power demand needed for data processing.
XRG was designed to help meet the fast-growing demand of energy for AI, he added.

Al Jaber presided over the UN’s Cop-28 climate talks in December 2023, which took place in the UAE. The appointment of an oil industry chief executive to manage talks to combat climate change was controversial. Emissions from fossil fuel use have caused global warming.

Al Jaber said he had wanted to inject realism and pragmatism into climate change talks when he took on that mandate.