ADNOC Gas has outlined plans to invest up to $15 billion over the next five years on multiple ongoing developments and also hopes later this year to take the final investment decision on its Rich Gas Development (RGD) project.
According to the Platts, Peter Van Driel, the company’s chief financial officer, told reporters on a conference call on Monday that the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) subsidiary's capital investment plan in the coming five years includes large-scale projects IGD-2, MERAM and Ruwais liquefied natural gas export facility, and a host of several ongoing smaller projects.
However, Van Driel clarified that two of the upcoming gas megaprojects are not yet included in its five-year capital investment plans and will be added once they are sanctioned.
He outlined five major growth projects, with the IGD-E2 integrated gas development expected to add 370 MMcf/d of capacity this year. MERAM, designed to extract ethane for petrochemicals at Habshan, is projected to add 3.4 million mt/year by 2026, while up to 2.2 million mt/year of MERAM's output may be supplied to ADNOC Gas' sister company, Borouge, for its fourth cracker.
The other 1.2 million mt/year would be allocated to exports, which are "very attractive to us because the margins are higher," Van Driel said.
“Additionally, Ruwais LNG is in the works, with an export capacity of 9.6 million mt/year expected by 2028. About 80% of the capacity is already secured. The fourth project, Bab Gas Cap, is set to add another 1.85 Bcf/d of capacity by at least 2029.”
“In addition to the $15 billion, a "rich gas development" project is under consideration to add at least 1.5 Bcf/d of production capacity, compared with the current capacity of about 10 Bcf/d,” Van Driel said.
The final investment decision is on track for this summer, with the project expected to be ready by late 2027, he added. The total investment could range $4 billion-$5 billion for a new train at Habshan and for the new Train 5 at Ruwais for fractionation.
The RGD project could potentially involve three sections, including debottlenecking at almost all of its facilities, including Habshan. The debottlenecking alone will cost $4 billion, and "it is not clear yet how much the investment in the additional processing and additional fractionation train will be. But if we take a positive decision on that, it is going to be a sizeable investment," Van Driel said.
The RGD project is important because ADNOC's parent company, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., is producing more oil and gas, the CFO said.
"In order to produce more oil and gas, you need to be able to process the gas that comes from the increased production. And as upstream ADNOC is ramping up its production, we see more gas coming through our infrastructure." That is at least 1.5 Bcf/d, he added.
The seventh train at Habshan is also possible, Van Driel said.
If ADNOC is producing more oil, it comes with more gas, Van Driel said.
"If I would not have the facilities ready to process that additional gas, I may negatively impact their oil production," he said. So both ADNOC Gas and ADNOC are producing more gas at the same time that demand is going up in the UAE. "So it is a perfect storm, whatever the expression is. All stars are aligned," he added.