UAE's Adnoc announces $8bn gas expansion, as it mulls Hormuz bypass

UAE's Adnoc announces $8bn gas expansion, as it mulls Hormuz bypass MEE staff on Mon, 08/10/2026 - 18:39 The UAE could be the first country to plan a gas pipeline bypassing the Strait of Hormuz Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the UAE's minister of industry and advanced technology, Adnoc managing director and group CEO, and chairman of the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company 'Masdar', attends the fifth edition of the 'Make it in the Emirates' conference in Abu Dhabi, on 4 May 4 2026 (Fadel Senna/AFP) Off The UAE’s state-owned energy giant, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), said on Monday it will invest $8bn to expand its gas business, doubling down on increasing capacity after the Gulf state pulled out of the Saudi Arabian-led energy alliance, Opec. Adnoc said it plans to build a new domestic natural gas processing unit at the country’s largest natural gas processing facility, Habshan, in addition to a new gas export facility at Ruwais. Separately, Adnoc Gas’s CFO, Peter van Driel, told Bloomberg on Monday that the company was also weighing plans to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility outside the Strait of Hormuz. That facility would be in addition to the facility at Ruwais that Adnoc Gas is building to more than double its export capacity to about 15 million tonnes a year. The move comes at a time when the Gulf’s LNG powerhouse, Qatar, has declared a force majeure on LNG shipments through the autumn as a result of the US-Israeli war on Iran. Qatar relies on vessels to ship gas in liquefied form.   Iran and the US are locked in negotiations over the status of the Strait of Hormuz, the critical corridor through which roughly 25 percent of the world’s energy passes. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Qatar resumed some LNG shipments after the US and Iran extended a ceasefire in June, but Qatari vessels have been attacked while transiting Oman’s territorial waters in recent months. The UAE’s vessels h