The Abu Dhabi-listed ADNOC Drilling Company is ready to boost the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) oil production capacity beyond the planned 5 million barrels per day (bbl/d) by 2027, should official approval be granted, the company’s CFO, Youssef Salem, told Reuters.
“We are ready to deliver any production capacity that ADNOC needs,” Salem noted, referring to the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, when asked if the firm could increase output if the UAE requested it.
The UAE left OPEC on May 1 to escape production limits, and could raise its oil capacity to 6 million (bbl/d) if needed, according to Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei’s statements in 2025.
ADNOC Drilling has already surpassed the UAE’s fast-tracked capacity goals, deploying 142 rigs by 2025, well ahead of the earlier target of 127 rigs by 2030, Salem added.
“We have multiple providers from China and elsewhere to bring in the rigs, we have the technologies, we have multiple partnerships with Baker Hughes, SLB, Patterson, others, we have the teams. So, we have everything we need to kind of produce any form of demand from ADNOC,” Salem said, noting that first-quarter well deliveries rose from a year earlier.
ADNOC Drilling has kept its operations unaffected by recent shipping disruptions and Gulf tensions linked to the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, Salem said.
“We had no impact at all from the events,” Salem pointed out. “All the rigs kept working. We kept the availability of 98% of the rigs throughout the quarter.”
To avoid the Strait of Hormuz, the company uses land routes, the east coast port of Fujairah, and keeps a two- to three-month inventory buffer.
ADNOC Upstream CEO Musabbeh al-Kaabi told Reuters earlier this month that the company expects to make a final investment decision this year on its unconventional gas project with France’s TotalEnergies, followed by a decision on a separate unconventional oil project with US EOG Resources and Malaysia’s PETRONAS.
ADNOC Drilling is moving quickly to support these milestones, Salem added, with nearly 100 first-phase wells finished and over 60 already hydraulically fractured. He added that EOG’s decision to join the oil project after the initial results was a positive sign.
