ADNOC L&S Orders Three Gas Carriers for $324M to Expand Shipping Fleet
The 90,000 cbm vessels are due in the second half of 2029 and will be deployed on a seven-year contract with ADNOC Global Trading.
Tariq Benali Tariq Benali covers business and corporate news across the UAE and MENA for Anecdoted, tracking the deals, leadership moves and regulatory shifts behind the region's companies. tariq@anecdoted.com
ADNOC Logistics & Services has ordered three more Very Large Gas Carriers, committing $324 million (AED 1.19 billion) to vessels that will move gas on the company's behalf for most of the next decade. The order was announced on Tuesday and forms part of a wider effort to expand the group's gas and crude oil shipping capacity.
Each carrier will have a capacity of 90,000 cubic meters. The three are scheduled to be delivered in the second half of 2029, after which they will be deployed on a seven-year contract with ADNOC Global Trading.
What is already on order
The purchase continues a stretch of acquisitions and newbuildings. In August the company bought five modern VLGCs and six Very Large Crude Carriers for a combined outlay of around $1.3 billion (AED 4.8 billion). The three new gas carriers and those six crude carriers are due in the third quarter of 2026. Two further VLGCs from the same batch arrive in the fourth quarter of 2026.
All of it sits inside a capital expenditure programme of $5.7 billion that the company says will widen its ability to support ADNOC Group.
LNG newbuildings
ADNOC L&S has also been assembling a fleet of LNG carriers, work tied to ADNOC's broader gas growth plans and to a global LNG marketing and trading platform launched recently. That platform is targeting 47 million tons per annum of combined marketable LNG by 2035.
By July the LNG newbuilding programme had reached 18 vessels. The most recent addition to that count was an order for four next-generation LNG carriers valued at about $900 million (AED 3.3 billion). Those ships are to be built at Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai and delivered in 2029.
Eight further LNG carriers, worth some $2.5 billion (AED 9.2 billion), are under construction at Samsung Heavy Industries and Hanwha Ocean. Delivery is expected from 2028. All eight are fixed on 20-year time charters to ADNOC Gas.
Half-year results
Growth across shipping and services lifted first-half 2026 revenue 46% year on year to $3.7 billion (AED 13.5 billion). Net profit rose 179% over the same period, to $1.2 billion (AED 4.3 billion).
Fleet expansion commitments since 2022 now exceed $5 billion, a total that includes the company's 50% share of the AW Shipping newbuild programme. ADNOC L&S placed 47th in a 2026 ranking of the region's 100 most valuable companies.
The pace has been steady: an August transaction covering eleven ships, a July order for four LNG carriers, and now three gas carriers booked for 2029 delivery. Read together, they show a company tying long-term tonnage to long-term charters rather than buying on speculation.
