The investment arm of United Arab Emirates state oil company ADNOC will make a significant investment in U.S. natural gas starting in the coming months, ADNOC CEO Sultan Al Jaber said on Tuesday.
The UAE is a member of the OPEC+ producer group and one of the world's top oil producers. ADNOC's fully-owned investment arm XRG has about $80 billion in assets and Reuters reported last week the UAE was considering options for an XRG IPO.
"It is time to make energy great again," he told the world's largest annual gathering of energy executives in Houston, mirroring the Make America Great Again slogan of U.S. President Donald Trump.
"Over the next few months and foreseeable future you will see very large and significant investment by XRG in the United States," he said.
XRG would invest throughout the gas supply chain, from exploration and development through distribution, and wanted to be a one-stop shop for gas, he said.
Trump has reversed some of the energy policies of his predecessor Joe Biden as he overhauls government in the early weeks of his presidency. Trump has exhorted the industry to maximise production, although under Biden there were few checks on production and oil and gas output hit record levels.
Jaber said it was time for pragmatic energy policy and actions as the world needs all forms of energy supply to meet rising demand.
Jaber presided over the UN's COP-28 climate talks in December 2023, which took place in the United Arab Emirates. The appointment of an oil industry chief executive to manage talks to combat climate change was controversial.
Jaber said he had wanted to inject realism and pragmatism into climate change talks when he took on that mandate.
The race for supremacy in artificial intelligence worldwide was essentially an energy play, he said, due to the huge power demand needed for data processing to back AI.
XRG was designed to help meet the fast-growing demand of energy for AI, he added.
