ADNOC Takes FID on Ruwais Diyab, Its First Large-Scale Unconventional Gas Project
The project is slated to deliver 345 million standard cubic feet a day of raw gas for 25 years from 2029, with volumes potentially reaching 1 billion a day.
ADNOC has taken a final investment decision on Ruwais Diyab, its first large-scale unconventional gas development. The company announced the approval in a statement on Monday, at ADIPEC, the annual energy industry event in Abu Dhabi.
Ruwais Diyab is expected to produce 345 million standard cubic feet per day of raw gas for 25 years, starting in 2029. Output could later rise to as much as 1 billion standard cubic feet per day, close to three times the initial volumes.
Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the UAE minister of industry and advanced technology and ADNOC's managing director and group CEO, said the investment would strengthen UAE energy security, support industrial growth and advance the company's global gas growth strategy. He called the decision an important milestone in unlocking Abu Dhabi's vast gas resources.
Gas from Ruwais Diyab will be processed at the site, and new pipelines will carry it into the UAE gas network. ADNOC said the added supply will serve the domestic market, support UAE economic and industrial growth and feed its LNG export ambitions. The company said it strengthens its gas value chain and helps ADNOC Gas, its processing and sales arm listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, meet rising demand from customers in the UAE and abroad.
ADNOC Onshore, the company's onshore oil and gas producer, will deliver the project under a design-build-operate model, in which one team designs, builds and runs the asset.
The decision followed technical studies, field testing and subsurface analysis aimed at lowering development risk, ADNOC said. Ruwais Diyab combines subsurface expertise with drilling and completion technology that uses artificial intelligence. The stated aim is a scalable unconventional gas business and a platform for future growth.
Unconventional gas sits in tight rock formations such as shale and requires specialized drilling to reach the surface. The UAE holds the world's seventh-largest gas reserves: 298 trillion standard cubic feet of conventional reserves and 160 trillion standard cubic feet of unconventional resources.
ADNOC cited growing global demand for reliable, lower-carbon energy. It said it is unlocking more UAE gas and expanding its LNG portfolio to serve customers and power industrial and AI infrastructure growth. The company is building Ruwais LNG, a 9.6 million tonnes per annum export plant in Al Ruwais Industrial City, and said in November 2025 that it was on track to begin commercial operations by the fourth quarter of 2028.
Unconventional gas is harder to produce than conventional reserves, which is why ADNOC points to the studies and field testing behind the decision. With 160 trillion standard cubic feet of unconventional resources in the ground, a repeatable model at Ruwais Diyab would matter well beyond this one field.
The concession is not a blank slate. ADNOC and France's Total, now TotalEnergies, delivered the UAE's first unconventional gas from Ruwais Diyab in November 2020, two years after the two signed the region's first unconventional gas concession agreement. The concession lies 200 kilometers west of Abu Dhabi city.
