Abu Dhabi National Oil Company will acquire a 30 per cent equity stake in Azerbaijan's Absheron gas and condensate field in the Caspian Sea, as part of its strategic growth plans and entry into the international gas market.
Under the agreement, Azerbaijan's state oil company Socar and France's TotalEnergies will each hold a 35 per cent stake in the gasfield, Adnoc said in a statement on Friday.
TotalEnergies had previously held a 50 per cent share alongside Socar in Absheron.
Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
“We believe this strategic partnership with Socar and TotalEnergies unlocks the potential of the Caspian region for decades to come, and complements a broader energy collaboration between the UAE and Azerbaijan that will accelerate the growth of the global renewable energy sector, as both countries take bold steps to transition towards a lower-carbon future,” Musabbeh Al Kaabi, executive director of low carbon solutions and international growth at Adnoc, said.
The Middle East is expected to spend up to $120 billion to boost natural gas production by more than 19 per cent by 2030, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
The region’s natural gas output will rise to 86 billion standard cubic feet a day by the end of the decade, from 72 bcfd currently, it said in a report in May.
Exports of liquefied natural gas surged last year, particularly from the Gulf region, as European countries scrambled to secure alternative sources of energy and reduce their reliance on Russian gas.
Adnoc Gas, a unit of Adnoc, has access to 95 per cent of the UAE's natural gas reserves, estimated to be the world's seventh-largest. It also supplies more than 60 per cent of the country's gas needs.
The partnership in Azerbaijan will enable Adnoc to build a major footprint in a region with prolific natural resources and significant growth potential and facilitate a route into “attractive international growth markets for gas in Europe and Central Asia”, it said.
As the world moves to a low-carbon energy system, natural gas will play a crucial role as a key transition fuel, Adnoc said.
The investment in the Absheron gasfield will further cement Adnoc's position as “a reliable supplier of lower-carbon energy”, the company said.
The deal also builds on existing renewable energy capacity agreements between the UAE and Azerbaijan.
The transaction complements Adnoc's investment through Abu Dhabi clean energy company Masdar to develop 10 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity from solar, onshore and offshore wind, and green hydrogen in collaboration with Socar, supporting both nations’ shared energy transition agenda, the company added.
Last August, Masdar achieved a financial close on its 230-megawatt Garadagh solar power plant in Azerbaijan. The plant is expected to generate half a billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually, meeting the needs of more than 110,000 homes.
Azerbaijan’s favourable investment climate offers conducive conditions for foreign investors in the energy sector, Socar president Rovshan Najaf said.
The Absheron deal reaffirms Azerbaijan’s position as a “reliable partner in the energy sector”, he added.
Production of the first phase in the Absheron gasfield started in early July, according to Nicolas Terraz, president of exploration and production at TotalEnergies.
The first gas from Absheron was delivered in early July.
The gasfield offers significant further development potential to meet growing gas demand, he said.
We believe this strategic partnership unlocks the potential of the Caspian region for decades to come, and complements a broader energy collaboration between the UAE and Azerbaijan
Musabbeh Al Kaabi,
executive director of low carbon solutions and international growth, Adnoc
As part of their expanding partnership, Adnoc and Socar also signed an preliminary agreement that will see both companies evaluate potential areas of collaboration across renewable energy, low carbon solutions and upstream projects in the UAE, Azerbaijan and internationally, the statement added.
Azerbaijan, which largely relies on natural gas to meet its energy needs, plans to increase its installed power capacity to 30 per cent from renewable sources by 2030 in an effort to diversify its economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The country is developing several clean energy projects.
In January last year, Saudi Arabia's Acwa Power and Azerbaijan's energy ministry started work on a $300 million, 240-megawatt wind power station.
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The biog
Title: General Practitioner with a speciality in cardiology
Previous jobs: Worked in well-known hospitals Jaslok and Breach Candy in Mumbai, India
Education: Medical degree from the Government Medical College in Nagpur
How it all began: opened his first clinic in Ajman in 1993
Family: a 90-year-old mother, wife and two daughters
Remembers a time when medicines from India were purchased per kilo
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Starring: Chris Evans, Chris Pratt, Tom Holland, Robert Downey Junior, Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olsen
Four stars
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The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
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Building boom turning to bust as Turkey's economy slows
Deep in a provincial region of northwestern Turkey, it looks like a mirage - hundreds of luxury houses built in neat rows, their pointed towers somewhere between French chateau and Disney castle.
Meant to provide luxurious accommodations for foreign buyers, the houses are however standing empty in what is anything but a fairytale for their investors.
The ambitious development has been hit by regional turmoil as well as the slump in the Turkish construction industry - a key sector - as the country's economy heads towards what could be a hard landing in an intensifying downturn.
After a long period of solid growth, Turkey's economy contracted 1.1 per cent in the third quarter, and many economists expect it will enter into recession this year.
The country has been hit by high inflation and a currency crisis in August. The lira lost 28 per cent of its value against the dollar in 2018 and markets are still unconvinced by the readiness of the government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to tackle underlying economic issues.
The villas close to the town centre of Mudurnu in the Bolu region are intended to resemble European architecture and are part of the Sarot Group's Burj Al Babas project.
But the development of 732 villas and a shopping centre - which began in 2014 - is now in limbo as Sarot Group has sought bankruptcy protection.
It is one of hundreds of Turkish companies that have done so as they seek cover from creditors and to restructure their debts.
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
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Toss: South Africa, elected to bowl first
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Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
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Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Specs
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BMW M5 specs
Engine: 4.4-litre twin-turbo V-8 petrol enging with additional electric motor
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The Equaliser 2
Director Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Denzel Washington, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, Ashton Sanders
Three stars
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Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
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This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.
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