Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has signed agreements with international energy companies to divest a total stake of 40% in its liquefied natural gas (LNG) project being developed in Abu Dhabi’s Ruwais industrial city.

British energy producer BP, Japanese firm Mitsui & Co, UK-based Shell and French energy producer TotalEnergies will hold 10% stakes each in the Ruwais LNG terminal project. Adnoc will retain the majority 60% stake in the facility.

The agreements were signed by Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, Adnoc’s managing director and group CEO; Murray Auchincloss, CEO of BP; Kenichi Hori, president and CEO of Mitsui & Co; Wael Sawan, CEO of Shell; and Patrick Pouyanne, chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies.

Sheikh Khaled Bin Mohamed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, witnessed the signing of the agreements in Abu Dhabi on 10 July.

LNG supply deals

Adnoc also signed new long-term LNG sales deals with Shell and Mitsui & Co. As part of those deals, Shell and Mitsui & Co will offtake 1 million tonnes a year (t/y) and 600,000 t/y of LNG, respectively, taking the committed Ruwais LNG production capacity to 70%.

Prior to these two supply deals, Adnoc had already secured three offtake agreements with foreign customers for the Ruwais LNG project.

In December last year, Adnoc bagged a deal with China’s ENN Natural Gas to supply at least 1 million metric t/y of LNG for 15 years. In March this year, Adnoc signed a sales agreement with another German firm, SEFE Securing Energy for Europe, for the supply of 1 million metric t/y of LNG for 15 years.

More recently, in May, Adnoc signed a heads of agreement with Germany’s EnBW Energie Baden-Wurttemberg (EnBW) for the delivery of 600,000 metric t/y for a duration of 15 years.

Ruwais LNG terminal project

The upcoming LNG export terminal, being built in Ruwais Industrial City in Abu Dhabi’s Al-Dhafra region, will have the capacity to produce about 9.6 million t/y of LNG from two processing trains, each with a capacity of 4.8 million t/y. When the project is commissioned, Adnoc’s LNG production capacity will more than double to about 15 million t/y.

Adnoc awarded the full engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract and achieved the final investment decision (FID) for the LNG terminal complex in June.

A consortium of France’s Technip Energies, Japan-based JGC Corporation and Abu Dhabi-owned NMDC Energy has been awarded the EPC contract, worth $5.5bn, Adnoc announced on 12 June. In March, Adnoc issued a limited notice to proceed to the consortium of contractors led by Technip Energies for early EPC works on the Ruwais LNG terminal project.

The Ruwais LNG terminal facility, to be operated by Adnoc Group subsidiary Adnoc Gas, will ship LNG mainly to key Asian markets, including Pakistan, India, China, South Korea and Japan.

The complex will feature process units, storage tanks and an export jetty for loading cargoes and LNG bunkering, as well as utilities, flare handling systems and associated buildings.

The planned LNG facility will run on electric-powered rotary equipment and compressors instead of gas-fired units. Adnoc awarded a $400m contract in October 2023 to US-based Baker Hughes for the supply of all-electric compression systems for the project. The LNG trains will run on energy-efficient Baker Hughes technology, including compressors driven by 75MW electric motors.

Photo credit: Emirates News Agency (Wam)