ADNOC CEO: $11 trln investment needed to meet future global energy demand

The chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) said that the long-term outlook for global energy demand was “robust” and that investment of $11 trillion in oil and gas was needed to keep up with projected demand.

United Arab Emirates minister of state and ADNOC Group CEO Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber also said that the state oil company was on track to raise its oil production capacity to 4 million barrels per day by 2020 and 5 million bpd by 2030.

The UAE, the third-largest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, behind Saudi Arabia and Iraq, pumps around 3 million barrels per day.

“In the short term ... global economic uncertainties are creating market volatility and impacting energy demand. But in the long term, the outlook is robust,” Jaber told an energy conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

He said population growth and rise of the middle class was expected to lead to greater spending power and that, as a result, more than three times the amount of energy currently consumed by Europe would be added to demand in the next two decades.

“To meet this demand ... we will need an inclusive response that integrates and optimizes a fully diversified energy mix,” he said, adding that the world would still rely on oil and gas as the majority source of energy for decades to come, which would require investment of $11 trillion to keep up with demand.

The CEO said ADNOC is unlocking “vast reserves” of natural gas by tapping into gas caps, undeveloped reservoirs and unconventional resources.

He said ADNOC launched the region's first commercial scale carbon capture utilization and storage facility in 2016 and plans to expand the program by six times over the next decade.