The grand tour

Good morning, friends, and happy ADIPEC week. Today’s issue touches every corner of our beat: the money behind the assets, the gas under the sand, the oil in storage, the jets on lease, and the rails still being laid.

We lead with who’s lending: Chinese banks have become a regular source of debt for Gulf energy majors, from QatarEnergy and Aramco to Adnoc and Acwa Power. The analysts we spoke to say the borrowers are choosing it, for the pricing and for the extra set of lenders.

Adnoc is working both ends of the gas trade: It has taken FID on Ruwais Diyab, its first large-scale unconventional gas project, which would cover about a fifth of the UAE’s gas supply gap from 2029. Adnoc Gas also signed a five-year agreement to supply up to 1.6 mn tons of LNG to TotalEnergies.

At ADIPEC, Al Jaber says the world has run down its oil buffers: He wants bigger strategic reserves, and Gulf producers are already building them in Asia. The World Bank expects stocks to keep falling, with global oil supply set to drop 5.2% this year, its steepest fall in more than four decades outside the 2020 recession.

Our favorite number of the morning: 11. That’s how many years Airbus and Boeing’s combined order backlog now stretches, which helps explain why Adia is buying into USD 1.4 bn of Avolon jets that are already flying.

What we’re watching this week: ADIPEC runs through Thursday, and GCC transport ministers meet in Bahrain on Sunday to sign the rail connectivity agreement for the 2.1k km line from Kuwait to Muscat. Trains aren’t due to run until end-2030, so there’s plenty of time to pack snacks.