India signs 15-year gas deal with ADNOC as trade with UAE grows

India is on track to becoming the UAE’s largest buyer of liquified natural gas.

Abu Dhabi-owned ADNOC Gas signed a 15-year sales and purchase agreement to supply LNG to Indian Oil Corp. the state-backed Indian energy giant.

The deal covers one million tons a year of LNG that will be sourced mainly from ADNOC’s lower-carbon Ruwais project.

It follows a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement signed by the UAE and India in 2022, which is projected to double bilateral trade between the two countries to $100 billion by 2030.

“This long-term agreement with Indian Oil underscores the robust energy relations between the UAE and India,” Rashid Khalfan Al Mazrouei, ADNOC Gas Senior Vice president of Marketing, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Global natural gas demand is projected to grow in 2026 after a slowdown in 2025, according to the International Energy Agency. 

ADNOC Gas has been steadily increasing LNG exports to India. In February, it signed a 14-year agreement valued at $7 billion to $9 billion to provide up to 1.2 million tons annually to Indian Oil.

It also signed a 10-year supply contract with Gail India in January 2023.

Qatar energy minister lays out plans for LNG expansion

Qatar expects demand for liquified natural gas to keep growing and sees little prospect of a growing glut in coming years.

Speaking at the Qatar Investment Forum in Doha on Wednesday, Energy Minister Saad Al-Kaabi said his country will press on with its multibillion-dollar expansion of liquified natural gas facilities, and may consider adding further capacity if more gas becomes available, Bloomberg reports.

“If we have a reasonable economic growth going forward, I think you’ll see all that supply and demand will catch up and you’ll need another phase of development of gas in the 2030s,” he said. “I don’t think gas is going away anytime soon.”

Qatar is boosting its LNG capacity to 126 million tons a year by 2027 from 77 million a year currently. It’s targeting 142 million tons a year by the end of the decade.