The head of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has denied media reports that the renewal of Abu Dhabi’s onshore oil concession has been delayed by a year.

Several reports emerged after an article in Petroleum Intelligence Weekly claimed Adnoc has proposed to extend the renewal 1 January 2015 to give it more time to define the joint-venture terms.

However, Adnoc’s director-general Abdulla Nasser al-Suwaidi told journalists at the opening of the Shams 1 solar power plant on 17 March that the bidding process is still on track. “We are still progressing on schedule,” he said.

The current concession, Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (Adco), was formed in 1978 and is set to expire on 1 January 2014. Adco is a joint venture of Adnoc and the UK’s BP, the US’ ExxonMobil, UK/Dutch Shell Group, France’s Total and Portugal’s Partex.

As the renewal of the concession nears, oil producers from at least 10 different countries are now jockeying for a position in the concession, which at 1.4 million barrels a day (b/d) averages about half of the UAE’s daily production.