Adnoc has locked in another long-term buyer for its Ruwais LNG project, signing a 15-year sales and purchase agreement with Shell subsidiary Shell International Trading Middle East, according to a press release. Shell will receive up to 1 mn tonnes of LNG annually under the contract, which upgrades a previous heads-of-agreement to a binding one.

Background: Adnoc inked the heads of agreement with Shell last year, while also handing it a 10% stake in the USD 7 bn Al Ruwais LNG plant. It also handed TotalEnergies, BP, and Mitsui each 10% stakes.

This is the eighth long-term offtake contract tied to Ruwais. With this agreement, Adnoc now has commitments covering more than 8 mn tons of the facility’s planned 9.6 mn tons annual capacity. That level of coverage has been reached roughly 16 months after the project’s FID in June last year.

REMEMBER- Adnoc has been converting heads of agreements into sales agreements for its Ruwais LNG plant over the past year, with Indian Oil Corporation, Germany’s SEFE, German energy infrastructure firm EnBW, Malaysia’s state-owned oil and gas firm Petronas, as well as Japan’s Jera and Osaka Gas.

The project is scheduled to come online by the end of 2028, with construction and contractor mobilization underway at the Al Ruwais Industrial City site, Adnoc Gas CEO Fatema Al Nuaimi said. The project will have two 4.8 mn tons of liquefaction trains, which will more than double Adnoc Gas’s current LNG production to some 15 mn tons annually once commissioned.

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