ADNOC tanker tracked getting past Strait of Hormuz blockade

The first LNG cargo to exit the Gulf since the Iran war began appears to have been shipped by ADNOC, putting the Abu Dhabi national oil company at the center of efforts to test whether energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz can resume.

Ship-tracking data show the Mubaraz loaded at ADNOC’s Das Island terminal and has now moved beyond the Gulf, marking the first confirmed LNG transit since late February after weeks of near-total paralysis, Bloomberg reports. 

ADNOC declined to comment on the specific shipment. “This is a developing situation and ADNOC continues to monitor developments closely while prioritizing the safety and security of its operations, people and assets,” the company said in a statement.

The massive tanker, which ⁠is managed by Adnoc Logistics & Services and was last seen in the Gulf ​on March 30, has shown up off the west coast of India, suggesting ​it crossed the Strait of Hormuz after several weeks without signal.

Meanwhile, a $500 million superyacht linked to sanctioned Russian billionaire Alexey Mordashov crossed the  Strait of Hormuz over the weekend from Dubai to Oman, raising questions about how it secured clearance, Reuters reports.

XRG consortium’s $19 billion bid for Australia’s Santos fails

XRG, the lower-carbon global investment arm of Abu Dhabi’s national oil company ADNOC, has walked away from a $19 billion takeover bid for Australian energy company Santos after the parties failed to agree on key terms.

Santos shares fell 12% on Thursday in trading on Sydney’s ASX, wiping some $2 billion off its market value.

A consortium led by XRG and including Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ and private equity firm Carlyle made the play for Australia’s second-largest gas producer in June. 

While the deal promised to be the largest all-cash buyout in Australian history, analysts expressed doubts over whether the sale would materialize after a lukewarm reception from shareholders and uncertainty over whether it would win regulatory approval.

Santos, a perennial takeover target still smarting from failed talks with domestic rival Woodside Energy last year, has stakes in prized gas assets in Papua New Guinea as well as its major Australian LNG projects. 

The failed deal and three months of lost time is also a setback for XRG, which is rapidly scaling up global operations and has set an ambitious goal to build a gas and LNG business with capacity of 20-25 million metric tons a year by 2035. 

The company, which was launched late last year with an enterprise value of more than $80 billion, is also facing headwinds in Europe, where its $17 billion acquisition of German chemicals firm Covestro is under review by the European Commission. 

ADNOC dealmaking goes straight to top amid Covestro negotiations

The decision by the UAE’s national oil company ADNOC to move from operating simply as a domestic oil producer to taking the reins as an international dealmaker comes straight from the top – and progress this week on a $12.5 billion takeover of German chemicals giant Covestro may burnish its reputation.  

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed chaired a 2022 board meeting where he approved a $150 billion five-year capital spending plan to transition the company from a traditional state oil firm into a diversified, multinational energy company. 

When the Covestro deal appeared to stall in recent months, ADNOC raised its bid after seeking approval from MBZ, Bloomberg reports. The negotiations took place against a backdrop of accelerating deal activity at ADNOC and its alternative energy company, Masdar, in which it owns a 33% stake. 

Now Masdar finds itself in a bidding war to acquire Spanish renewables firm Saeta Yield from Brookfield. In the past year it has bought a renewable energy company in Greece and announced a deal to purchase a 50% stake in Terra-Gen, one of the largest private renewable energy producers in the U.S.

The ink dries on these agreements as ADNOC is boosting production capacity and Masdar is looking to develop or acquire an energy portfolio of at least 100 GW capacity by 2030.