Friday 26 / April / 2024
Muscat: The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) on Tuesday announced that it is receiving considerable interest from potential partners, as it explores a range of new growth options and initiatives to accelerate the delivery of its recently announced downstream strategy. The new downstream plans were outlined on Sunday 13, at the Adnoc Downstream Investment Forum in Abu Dhabi.
At the event, Adnoc detailed plans to invest $45 billion, to become a global downstream leader, enabling it to further stretch the value of every barrel it produces to the benefit of Adnoc, its partners and the UAE, creating a range of opportunities for new and existing partners and investors.
The downstream strategy will build on the Adnoc transformation program of the last two years, which focuses on maximising value by driving operational efficiency, enhancing performance, realigning the management of its portfolio of assets, and introducing a new and expanded partnership and investment model.
Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and Adnoc Group CEO, said, “As we grow in the downstream, a central pillar of our strategy will be the creation of a global refining and petrochemical growth engine at Ruwais. We are exploring a range of options in Ruwais, including bringing in partners who share our vision to develop new businesses that will accelerate the growth of the complex."
“The expansion and enhancement of our refining capabilities in Ruwais, along with the development of Derivatives and Conversion Parks, are key initiatives aimed at significantly expanding Adnoc’s downstream operations," he said.
"They will provide the UAE private sector, and international companies, the opportunity to partner with us to build and profit from the extended petrochemical value chain. The entire plan will support the development and diversification of the UAE’s economy, create highly skilled, specialized jobs and contribute to GDP growth,” he added.
Adnoc is now accelerating this transformation by executing its downstream strategy that is aligned with Adnoc’s 2030 strategy of a more profitable upstream, more valuable downstream, more sustainable and economic gas supply, and more proactive, adaptive marketing and trading. Adnoc will look to create long term downstream partnerships, providing access to opportunities across the value chain for both investors and partners.
Bob Dudley, CEO of BP, who was in attendance at the Downstream Investment Forum, commented on Adnoc’s partnership model and the investment opportunities it provides.
He said, “Abu Dhabi for us is a strategic partner, it’s a great place to invest... the UAE has great resources to produce, and it exports those, but now it can take them and add more value to every barrel of crude oil and natural gas it produces, turning them into other products, and sending them to the markets. This seems like a natural fit because Abu Dhabi is located at the cross roads of the world, and it’s a really ambitious idea that Abu Dhabi has experience of executing.”
John Flint, Group CEO of HSBC paid tribute to the impact of the program and the prospects of the UAE, saying “Adnoc's transformation is capturing the attention of investors around the world. The UAE is a good place to invest now because it has economic ambition coupled with dynamic and clear leadership.”
Mark Garrett, CEO of Borealis, the Austria headquartered partner of Adnoc in their joint venture Borouge, said “When we invest, we look for long term advantaged feedstock supply, ability to access markets, ability to leverage our technologies and the ability to fund. In regards to ADNOC and Abu Dhabi, we found these things.”
Central to the plan will be a major enhancement and expansion of refining, petrochemicals and manufacturing operations and capabilities in Ruwais, UAE. The plans will build on the existing strengths and competitive advantages of the Ruwais Industrial Complex, through a combined program of strategic partnerships and investment, and will see Adnoc increase the range and volume of high-value downstream products to meet rising global demand.
An enhancement of refining capacity and capabilities will enable the creation of a manufacturing ecosystem in Ruwais in the form of Derivatives and Conversion Parksthat will further stimulate In-Country Value creation, private sector growth and employment in the UAE.
The plans will see crude oil refining capacity doubled, and petrochemicals production tripled by 2025. In addition, the plans will see the creation of more than 15,000 highly skilled, specialized jobs in the petrochemicals and refining fields added by 2025, along with a contribution of an additional one per cent to the gross domestic product (GDP) per year.
With a refining capacity of 922,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and condensate, Adnoc’s operations in Ruwais already make it the fourth largest refining complex globally, representing 10 per cent of refining capacity in the Middle East. Adnoc aims to increase and enhance the processing capacity and capabilities of the Ruwais refinery and petrochemicals complex through a range of new initiatives and investments.
