DUBAI: Abu Dhabi planned to raise capacity to 3.5 million barrels a day in 2017 from about 3 million barrels a day now. UAE sells 10 percent stake to Total Oil Company to pump more crude amid a global supply glut.
Middle Eastern energy suppliers including the UAE are expanding their capacity to produce crude oil for export as well as to boost output of natural gas, which they burn as fuel in local power plants. The UAE, an Opec member, holds about 6 per cent of global oil reserves. Most of it lies in Abu Dhabi, which plans to raise capacity to 3.5 million barrels a day in 2017 from about 3 million barrels a day now. The emirate sells most of its crude to buyers in Japan, South Korea and India.
Abu Dhabi is one of the few places in the Arabian Gulf region where the largest US and European producers still hold direct stakes in oil fields. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, fellow members of Opec, don’t allow foreigners to invest in crude production.
Adnoc, as the government-owned producer is known, has been seeking for more than a year to line up new foreign partners to develop the emirate’s onshore deposits. Its previous joint venture with Total, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and Portugal’s Partex Oil & Gas expired in January 2014.
