(Bloomberg) – ADNOC will maintain its investments at $150 billion over the next five years as it targets growth in production capacity at home and expands internationally.
The company’s board approved the spending plan that’s in line with the previous layout that was announced three years ago. Since then, Abu Dhabi’s biggest oil producer has carved out an international investment business called XRG that is scouring the globe for deals.
XRG has boosted its enterprise value to $151 billion from $80 billion since it was set up about a year ago, ADNOC said in a statement. The unit, which this year got stakes in ADNOC’s listed companies with a total market value exceeding $100 billion, aims to become among the world’s top five suppliers of natural gas and petrochemicals, along with the energy needed to meet demand from the AI and tech booms.
XRG has also snapped up contracts for liquefied natural gas in the U.S. and Africa, bought into gas fields around the Mediterranean and is in the final stages of a nearly $14 billion takeover of German chemical maker Covestro AG.
Still, the company’s biggest effort yet fell apart in September when the firm dropped its planned $19 billion takeover of Australian natural gas producer Santos Ltd. It bounced back with a deal announced this month to explore buying into an LNG project in Argentina.
ADNOC’s board, chaired by UAE President and Abu Dhabi ruler Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, reviewed plans to expand oil and gas production capacity and looked at expansion progress. It re-arranged the operating company for the Hail and Ghasha offshore natural gas concession and boosted the project’s production target to 1.8 billion cubic feet per day, from 1.5 billion, by the end of the decade.
