Why the UAE Is Taking a Bigger Piece of America’s LNG Crown Jewel
OPEC Cuts Demand Forecast Again as the Oil Market Starts Looking Past Hormuz Utilities are underestimating fuel-price risk,… Simon Watkins is a former senior FX trader and salesman, financial journalist, and best-selling author.
He was Head of Forex Institutional Sales and Trading for… As might be expected in the zero-sum game of global energy, there is much more than meets the eye to the acquisition by Abu Dhabi-headquartered international investment company XRG of an additional equity interest in Trains (self-contained production facilities) 4 and 5 of the U.S.’s flagship Rio Grande liquefied natural gas (LNG) project at the Port of Brownsville, Texas.
In practical terms, this gives the firm that is wholly owned by the UAE’s oil and gas giant Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) much deeper exposure to one of the world’s largest LNG export facilities through equity interests across all five trains currently under construction.
Geopolitically, it means that Washington has allowed the UAE to strengthen its strategic presence in one of the U.S.’s most important energy sectors.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, LNG has become the world’s emergency energy source, as, unlike pipelined gas or oil, it can be secured and shipped very quickly to wherever it is needed.
is determined to leverage its relatively recently established dominance in the field as a core plank of its foreign policy.
So, what is really happening here? In broad terms, after the invasion, the U.S.
not only coordinated major deals between major LNG producers — notably Qatar — and European countries to offset the loss of Russian energy supplies, but also sharply increased its own LNG exports to the continent.
From virtually a standing start in 2016, U.S.
export capacity had reached roughly 11.4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), making it the world’s leading LNG exporter in the first half of that year – a position it maintains to this day.
Meanwhile, several major European oil and gas companies also moved aggressively in support of Washington to diversify the region’s energy sources through new ventures in Egypt, Libya, Iraq, and elsewhere — developments covered in detail inmy new book on the new global oil market order.
Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that the U.S.’s LNG export capacity will double by 2031 compared with 2024 levels, as new projects such as Venture Global’s Plaquemines facility and Cheniere’s Corpus Christi expansion come fully online.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | +0.92% |
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