Story details
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, known as ADNOC, announced at the ADIPEC 2026 exhibition that it has taken the formal Final Investment Decision for the Ruwais Diyab Unconventional Gas Development project. The capital decision marks the UAE's inaugural commercial development of tight and shale gas resources. The initial production phase is designed to extract raw natural gas from the prolific Diyab unconventional play, delivering an initial production throughput of 345 million standard cubic feet per day beginning in 2029.
The Ruwais Diyab project is structured around a multi-decade operational horizon, with planned raw gas extraction extending across an initial 25-year production life. The project architecture incorporates future expansion optionality designed to progressively scale field deliverability up to 1 billion standard cubic feet per day. The raw natural gas will undergo on-site primary separation and dehydration before being routed through newly constructed high-pressure pipeline networks connecting directly into the United Arab Emirates' national gas transmission grid.
ADNOC Onshore will manage operational execution under a design-build-operate project model, integrating advanced artificial intelligence applications and modern unconventional completion techniques. Subsurface operations will utilise long-reach horizontal drilling, multi-stage hydraulic fracturing and continuous fiber-optic downhole acoustic sensing to optimise fracture geometries in low-permeability carbonate and shale reservoirs. Recovered gas will supply growing domestic industrial demand, power new artificial intelligence computing clusters and provide feedstock for ADNOC's expanding liquefied natural gas export infrastructure at Ruwais.
The investment decision aligns directly with ADNOC's broader commercial mandate to achieve gas self-sufficiency for the UAE while expanding its footprint in international LNG markets. By unlocking substantial unconventional reserves through cutting-edge engineering and localized industrial supply chains, ADNOC reinforces the UAE's strategic standing as a dependable global supplier of lower-carbon natural gas. The operator will deploy electrified pad facilities and strict methane detection frameworks to ensure that the project operates with industry-leading operational emissions intensity.