
n November 2020, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) commenced gas production from its unconventional gas field—a milestone that helped the world’s third largest oil producer inch closer toward its gas self-sufficiency goal by 2030.
In an exclusive interview with E&P Plus, Mohamed R. Al Zaabi, senior vice president of unconventional and exploration with ADNOC, discussed the tremendous potential of unconventionals in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and his company’s commitment to working with international partners to develop the UAE’s capital city, Abu Dhabi’s unconventional resources.
In addition, we see great prospects beyond this area including in our tight oil and gas reservoirs, which we are further exploring and appraising.
The potential for an unconventional oil and gas industry in the UAE is evident, and we are committed to working with international partners to develop Abu Dhabi’s unconventional resources to mutually benefit the UAE, its people and our future international partners.
The development of this industry is underpinned by the UAE’s trusted and reliable investment environment, our infrastructure and excellent geographical location.
Since we began exploring for unconventional resources, we have successfully customized North American unconventional technologies to Abu Dhabi’s reservoir conditions. Doing this has expedited our learning curve, driven efficiencies and reduced our costs.
ADNOC is also using digitalization and artificial intelligence to turn our vast amount of operational information into data that we can use to harness efficiencies. For example, during the pandemic our remote operations monitoring capabilities have enabled us to maintain operations by managing real-time drilling and fracturing, providing sites with technical and decision-making support to bring online our unconventional wells.
The progress we make can be further expedited as we secure strategic value-add partners that bring advanced technology and capabilities as well as deep expertise in unconventionals.
This is just the beginning, and we know we cannot maximize the full potential of Abu Dhabi’s unconventional resources alone. We need multiple operators or partners such as was required for U.S. shale basins.
There is huge opportunity for the growth of unconventionals in the UAE; the acreage is contiguous across an area exceeding 25,000 sq km with year-round accessibility, and the proximity to infrastructure and market is a plus in addition to a very efficient permitting process.

100% operatorship is another opportunity for international partners, which allows for a flexible and cost-focused operating model. Ruwais Diyab Concession is one example where ADNOC is a 60% nonoperating partner and Total holds a 40% stake but is the operator.
We are also seeing promising production results across all our oil and gas exploration activities in the Al Dhafra region in the west of Abu Dhabi city where we are conducting sole risk operations.
To support ADNOC’s unconventionals growth strategy, the Integrated Drilling Services [IDS] and fracking capabilities of ADNOC Drilling, ADNOC’s start-to-finish IDS drilling business, will be instrumental in delivering our mandate to unlock the abundant, untapped unconventional oil and gas resources across Abu Dhabi.
As we progress toward ensuring a sustainable and more economic gas supply, we will benefit from our unconventional resources being located near ADNOC’s Ruwais industrial area. This enables operations to leverage ADNOC’s expansive existing infrastructure and enables efficient logistics and operational management while also providing the potential for the future growth of an unconventionals gas industry in the UAE.
Fortunately, we have all the components to ensure unconventionals in the UAE become commercially viable and profitable. In addition to having a laser focus on cost reduction, our early field development economics, based on actual well production results, show competitive costs compared to early play entries in North America and in the region. Critically, our well performance and reservoir quality of our unconventional plays also show lower decline and potentially higher recovery factors.
Our data show that when we reach full field development, our current costs will significantly decrease, and we expect they will be competitive even with the most commercial North American shale plays.