Abu Dhabi National Oil Company has given the final go-ahead to its first large-scale unconventional gas development, approving the Ruwais Diyab project at the ADIPEC energy conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
The development will deliver 345 million standard cubic feet of raw gas a day from 2029, sustained over a 25-year period, with the potential to expand to as much as 1 billion cubic feet a day in the future. The gas will be processed on site and carried into the UAE’s national gas network through new pipelines.
ADNOC Onshore will deliver the project under a design-build-operate model, under which a single delivery organisation designs, builds and then runs the asset, an approach the company says reduces development risk after years of technical studies, field testing and subsurface evaluation.
The Ruwais Diyab concession lies about 200 kilometres west of Abu Dhabi city. ADNOC signed the Middle East’s first unconventional gas concession there with TotalEnergies, then Total, in 2018, and the partners delivered the first unconventional gas from the field into the UAE pipeline network in November 2020. ADNOC now operates the concession with a 90 per cent interest, with TotalEnergies holding the remaining 10 per cent.
Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and ADNOC managing director and group chief executive, said the decision “marks an important milestone in unlocking Abu Dhabi’s vast gas resources”. The project opens up a new source of supply alongside the UAE’s 298 trillion standard cubic feet of conventional gas reserves: Abu Dhabi holds an estimated 160 trillion standard cubic feet of unconventional gas resources.
The new volumes will chiefly bolster domestic supply for power generation and industry, while also supporting ADNOC’s wider gas strategy, including the Ruwais LNG project, which is due to begin commercial operations in 2028 with annual capacity of 9.6 million tonnes.
Two key details remain undisclosed: ADNOC has not published the project’s investment value and has not named contractors for the full-field development, so the cost and construction timetable beyond the 2029 start date are not yet clear.
Sources: ADNOC announcement at ADIPEC 2026, as reported by OilPrice (https://oilprice.com/Company-News/ADNOC-Approves-Major-UAE-Gas-Development-to-Boost-Domestic-Supply.html) and Energy Connects (https://www.energyconnects.com/opinion/features/2026/november/adnoc-takes-fid-on-ruwais-diyab-unconventional-gas-development/).
