ADNOC联合TotalEnergies、Eni和中石油投资62亿美元开发Umm Shaif天然气项目

Adnoc to invest in $6.2bn natural gas schemes as UAE bids for self-sufficiency
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company will invest in a $6.2bn natural gas development as part of its push to massively expand its domestic production to meet both rising local and global demand.
Financing has been lined up to develop a layer of natural gas sitting on top of Umm Shaif, its longest operating offshore oil and gasfield, said Adnoc in a statement.
The state-run firm will invest alongside TotalEnergies, Eni and China National Petroleum Corporation in the project, which will produce more than 600mn cubic feet of natural gas per day, it said. Adnoc is currently able to pump as much as 11.5bn cubic feet per day.
Adnoc is accelerating its gas strategy in response to surging global demand for liquefied natural gas, said chief executive Sultan al-Jaber, adding its strategy was “reinforcing Adnoc’s position as a reliable gas supplier”.
At the same time, Adnoc is racing to keep pace with the UAE’s rapidly rising domestic demand for gas. Around a third of its gas needs are met by pipeline imports from Qatar, but the agreement expires in 2032, and there are political tensions between the two countries.
The UAE wants to become self-sufficient by the end of the decade in order to avoid shortages should Dolphin pipeline flows from Qatar come to an abrupt halt. The Umm Shaif gas cap project will start operating in 2030, according to the statement.
For exports, Adnoc is building a plant that will almost treble its liquefied natural gas capacity by 2028, with the 9.6mn tonne per year plant at Ruwais already under construction.
It is also reportedly considering building another LNG plant in Fujairah, on the other side of the United Arab Emirates, that would be less affected by disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz than its Gulf facilities.
The company declined to comment on the potential plans.
The Umm Shaif development is the first time Adnoc is investing in one of its so-called gas caps. It also plans to develop the larger 1.5bn cubic feet per day Bab Gas Gap project alongside six oil majors including TotalEnergies and BP, but has yet to reach a deal to finance it.
Most of Adnoc’s gas is produced alongside oil, and is relatively cheap to produce, but as the firm’s ambitions have grown, it has tapped into progressively more expensive sources of gas.
A small amount of oil will be produced from the Umm Shaif gas cap too. Since the UAE left Opec in May, Adnoc no longer has to limit its oil output and can invest in expanding its production without concerns that it might not be allowed to fully utilise its investments.
At the same time, oil companies often avoid tapping gas caps until late in the field’s life as extracting gas can reduce the pressure of the reservoir and ultimately reduce oil production.
“There are things you can do to help mitigate the pressure loss, but [developing a gas cap] is just not something you would typically do early in the life of a field,” said Fraser McKay, head of upstream analysis at Wood Mackenzie.
“It’s a complex engineering and subsurface challenge.”