THIS MORNING: Adnoc Gas has a potential new buyer for incoming extra supply + Is a third Hormuz bypass on the way?

Good morning, lovely people. The midterms are over, the Democrats have won both the House and the Senate in a landslide, and the war that has defined our year was a big part of the reason why.

About six in 10 voters told AP’s Election Day poll that the US made the wrong decision in taking military action against Iran. US President Donald Trump conceded the war played a role in his party’s losses. “Iran was a piece of it,” he told The Wall Street Journal, though he still stood by his decision to attack.

What it means for us is still unclear. While the Gulf has been bracing for another escalation in attacks after the elections, Trump’s tone was softer yesterday. He told the Financial Times he had no immediate plans to strike Iran, saying the US is ready but that “there may be no reason for it.” Tehran isn’t giving ground either. An Iranian official told Reuters the two sides are still a ways off from an agreement, and Iran’s supreme leader said partisan swings in Washington won’t change US hostility. The window to watch is the next two months. The new Congress isn’t sworn in until January, and some analysts see a Democratic win as possibly strengthening Trump’s incentive to act during the transition.

We’re also keeping an eye on our AI chip deals. Democrats have promised to investigate the Trump administration agreements that gave G42 license-free access to the most advanced US chips and approved up to 35k chips for Saudi Arabia’s Humain. Controlling both chambers gives them subpoena power. They can’t undo the agreements before a Democrat is in the White House, but the UAE’s license-free access expires in April, so any extension will now face much closer scrutiny on Capitol Hill.

It’s an equally big day for news here at home. Most large businesses picked a provider before last Friday’s deadline, providers tell us, but many haven’t started the integration work they’ll need to go live on 1 January. We take a look at the bottlenecks in this morning’s Big Story Today.

Meanwhile, DIP priced its IPO at the midpoint of its range, with Saudi Arabia’s PIF and a Blackstone unit reportedly in the book, while Emaar moves to acquire all of Emaar Development at an AED 60 bn valuation. In debt, Pearl Petroleum upsized its bond to USD 500 mn at a lower rate than it paid two years ago, and Ta’ziz closed USD 1.39 bn to finance a chemicals export terminal and an ammonia plant in Ruwais. Also this morning: Non-oil firms raised their prices at a record pace in October, which bodes ill for this month’s inflation figures, and Gulf crude exports are back near pre-war levels, enough to tip Dubai’s oil market into contango.

Gas for the north

Adnoc Gas has a potential new buyer for the extra gas it’s bringing online. Adnoc Gas and Etihad Water and Electricity (EtihadWE) signed an agreement to explore supplying gas to new power plants across the Northern Emirates, Wam reports. A supply agreement would give Adnoc Gas a domestic market for the additional volumes its growth program is set to unlock and give EtihadWE fuel for the gas-fired part of its planned mix of gas and renewable generation. Neither side disclosed volumes, contract value, or delivery timelines.

The UAE wants to stop importing gas by 2030. The country still imports gas to cover a domestic supply deficit, which stood at an estimated 17.7 bn cbm in 2025. Adnoc Gas projects domestic gas demand will grow 4-5% a year between 2023 and 2030. To close the gap, Adnoc Gas is spending USD 13.2 bn on its Rich Gas Development program to expand processing capacity and USD 2.4 bn on its Estidama project to extend the national gas network.

Another Hormuz bypass pipeline?

Adnoc has denied it, but Bloomberg’s sources say the UAE is mulling a third west-east pipeline for crude deliveries to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Plans could still change, and third parties may also be able to use the pipeline through to Fujairah, the sources said. Adnoc says that the reports are “purely speculative” and “not accurate.”

Three’s a charm: Adcop, the existing Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, helped keep supplies moving somewhat amid the disruption in Hormuz, prompting Adnoc to accelerate work since the conflict started on its West-East pipeline, which is set to double Hormuz-bypassing export capacity. Last week, it was reported that the pipeline could begin supplying Asian customers by early next year as the UAE doubles down on its zero-reliance-on-Hormuz strategy.

PSA

WEATHER- In Abu Dhabi, temperatures will reach 35°C today, while Dubai will see a high of 34°C, before both emirates see overnight lows of 25°C, according to our favorite weather app.

The big story abroad

Wall Street rallied yesterday after Democrats won a sweeping midterm victory that gave them control of both the House and Senate, while expectations of an earlier end to the Iran War drove oil prices down. Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft each gained over 6%, as investors wager that the new Congress will push for cuts in AI investment. Energy stocks fell 4.7% and were heading for their steepest daily drop since 2025. Tesla, SpaceX, and data-center companies like CoreWeave declined, while housing stocks gained on lower Treasury yields and mining shares rose as metals prices climbed.

Bill Gates has accused the Trump administration of blocking efforts to manage AI risks, warning the technology could cause a pandemic far deadlier than Covid. Speaking at an FT summit, the Microsoft co-founder named AI-enabled bioweapons and cyberattacks as the biggest immediate threats. He said self-regulation will not work and urged Washington to consider safety benchmarks for AI models, lead a global effort to fix cyber vulnerabilities, and expand monitoring to catch AI-enabled infections early.

Google has widened its voluntary severance program to staff in several countries this year to contain rising costs as it pours money into AI. The company said it started extending the packages in June to some workers in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland, though the number of workers who took them is unknown. Past offers did not include employees in Google Cloud or DeepMind, and the new round seems to exclude them as well. The expansion follows Microsoft’s move to offer buyouts to 60k staff as part of its own cost-cutting push.

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Market watch

Gulf barrels outrun demand again: The region’s oil market is showing signs of surplus for the first time since July. Dubai’s nearest timespread, which sets the price for nearly all crude exported from the region, slipped into contango this week, with the November contract trading c. USD 2 / bbl below December, traders tell Bloomberg. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, and Kuwait shipped a combined 15.53 mn bbl / d of crude in October, up 10% from September and roughly in line with pre-war levels, according to tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.

SOUND SMART- Contango means prompt oil trades below later-dated oil and is a sign there’s no rush for barrels today.

The UAE raised exports to 3.74 mn bbl / d, its highest since July. Saudi Arabia did the heavy lifting, raising exports 13% to 7 mn bbl / d, with Red Sea port Yanbu up 35% to 3.07 mn bbl / d after its East-West pipeline came back from a September attack launched from Iraq. Iraq added 9.5% to 3.35 mn bbl, and Kuwait boosted shipments by a third to 1.44 mn bbl / d, while Iran shipped nothing for a second month under the US naval blockade.

Physical markets are softening across the board. Spot transactions in S&P Global’s Dubai trading window, which usually price at a premium, came in near parity with the benchmark, and a North Sea cargo offered below Brent found no buyers. A month ago, such cargoes fetched premiums. “This time, the increase is more gradual,” June Goh, senior oil market analyst at Sparta Commodities, tells the business news service. In June, she said, a backlog of oil sitting on supertankers exited the Gulf all at once. Brent crude futures are holding above the USD 100-a-barrel threshold amid reports that Washington carried out an attack on Iran’s Qeshm Island on Monday.