The UAE’s ADNOC plans to invest billions of dollars in building a presence in the U.S. natural gas industry, the Financial Times reported today, citing the chief executive of ADNOC’s international investment division, XRG.
Nameer Siddiqui told the FT that the company was in the process of evaluating as many as 29 potential acquisition targets in order to build a vertically integrated natural gas business in the United States, covering everything from extraction to pipeline transportation, liquefaction, and regasification in receiving countries.
XRG is not only eyeing the global LNG market, but Siddiqui also said. Any business that the company builds in the U.S. will also seek to cater to the energy needs of data center operators, the executive told the FT. As for the manner of acquisitions, the executive said the company is considering several options, including minority stake purchases, drilling joint ventures, and buying controlling stakes in attractive projects in the U.S. natural gas patch.
ADNOC set up XRG at the end of 2024 with an enterprise value of $80 billion, combining the parent company’s lower-carbon energy and chemicals investment operations across the world. Initially, XRG was to focus on transformational global investments that create value across natural gas, chemicals, and lower-carbon energy solutions, ADNOC said at the time.
Last year, ADNOC began shifting some of its U.S. natural gas and alternative energy stakes under the XRG umbrella. “Under the XRG umbrella, we are partnering with Exxon in the world’s biggest ammonia and hydrogen production facility in Texas; we are investing with NextDecade in the state’s largest liquefied natural gas facility; and through our acquisition of Covestro, we are supporting thousands of highly skilled US jobs in high-performance plastics and advanced polymers,” ADNOC chief executive Sultan Al Jaber said at the time.
XRG bought a 35% stake in ExxonMobil’s proposed low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia production facility in Baytown, Texas. Another recent acquisition saw XRG become an 11.7% shareholder in Phase 1 of NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG export project, also in Texas.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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