Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has confirmed that the US’ ConocoPhillips has formally quit the $10bn Shah gas development.

The office of Adnoc chief executive Yousef bin Omair bin Yousef tells MEED that: “They will go, we will release a press release this afternoon [28 April].”

MEED reported on 26 April that the US energy major would come to a decision over its participation in the scheme, to produce 1 billion cubic feet a day of sour, or sulphur-rich, gas from the field by 29 April. Senior sources on the project speculated at the time that the company planned to quit the development, on which it was a 40 per cent joint venture partner.

The decision follows the company’s 21 April announcement that it had quit its $10bn joint venture refinery project with Saudi Aramco at Yanbu on the kingdom’s Red Sea coast because it no longer fit in with Conoco’s long-term strategy.

Conoco decided to walk away from the 50:50 Yanbu joint venture despite having reached an extremely advanced stage of tendering for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts and finance deals for the 400,000 barrel a day export refinery (MEED 21:4:10).

The Shah gas development is at a similar stage, and firms that were selected for five of the main engineering, procurement and construction deals on the project received draft letters of award for their contracts on 28 April which still said Conoco was involved in the project.