ABU DHABI: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) plans to not only meet its domestic liquefied natural gas (LNG) needs but also significantly expand exports, Energy Minister Suhail Al-Mazrouei said on Monday.
Speaking at Abu Dhabi Financial Week, Al-Mazrouei noted that global demand for natural gas is growing faster than investments in new production. He echoed the views of Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad Al-Kaabi, who recently projected that LNG demand will rise to 600–700 million tonnes per year by 2035, driven in part by the soaring energy requirements of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies.
“We intend not only to satisfy our local demand, but we are also growing our export of LNG,” Al-Mazrouei said, stressing that future demand will far exceed the scale of current global project pipelines.
In line with this outlook, ADNOC’s international investment arm, XRG, announced earlier that it aims to build a gas and LNG portfolio with an annual capacity of 20–25 million tonnes by 2035 — positioning the UAE as a major player in the expanding global LNG market.
