Adnoc Gas chief says gas demand will continue to grow in the long-term
Artificial intelligence data centres will need so much power that gas demand keeps rising for decades, the chief executive of Adnoc Gas said, even as conflict in the Middle East has cut about a fifth of the world's monthly liquefied natural gas supply.
Fatema Al Nuaimi told the Adipec conference on Tuesday that "gas is going to continue to grow and demand is going to continue in the long-term", pointing to new demand hubs created by AI. She said about 9.5 million tonnes of LNG would be required just for SpaceX, and that the UAE is "an ambitious nation when it comes to building AI hubs to attract the biggest names in artificial intelligence and for this to be materialised, energy is required".
Shell's latest LNG outlook projects global LNG demand rising by around 65 per cent by 2050 to nearly 700 million tonnes a year, with new data centres to power AI among the drivers. The supply side is strained: shipping disruption in the Strait of Hormuz has shut down about a fifth of monthly global LNG supply since the Middle East conflict began in February, and Ras Laffan in Qatar, the world's largest LNG refinery, was severely damaged by Iranian missile attacks. QatarEnergy has declared long-term force majeure on contracts with buyers in China, South Korea, Italy and Belgium.
Al Nuaimi called for flexibility and co-operation in managing gas contracts, saying they are "very rigid, written with terms and conditions" and "not fit for different circumstances that face us in the market". Adnoc Gas also announced a five-year agreement on Tuesday to supply up to 1.6 million tonnes of LNG to France's TotalEnergies, part of a push to expand its global market share as it scales up a new trading platform combining Adnoc Gas, investment arm XRG and Adnoc Trading. The company supplies about 60 per cent of the UAE's sales gas needs and customers in more than 20 countries.
Abu Dhabi is investing heavily in AI infrastructure, including the 1-gigawatt Stargate UAE project being developed by G42 with OpenAI, Oracle and Nvidia within a 5GW UAE-US AI Campus.
