View / ADNOC still sees a long future for oil

A curious bit of backsliding happened in Abu Dhabi this week. Two years ago this month, Sultan Al-Jaber, head of ADNOC, presided over a climate summit that made history by securing a commitment from nearly every country to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.” That goal now appears to be on the backburner: When Al-Jaber took the podium again on Monday to host ADIPEC, the world’s biggest energy conference, he emphasized that “the long-term outlook shows demand growth for every form of energy” and that oil demand will stay at or above its current level well after 2040. A number of other oil CEOs seem to share that view.

One explanation Al-Jaber cited for the switch is AI data centers, which have become Big Oil’s go-to justification for a rapid buildout of new fossil infrastructure. Lord John Browne, former CEO of BP and now managing director of a climate-focused fund at the private equity firm General Atlantic, offered another explanation: The conference, he told me by phone from Abu Dhabi, “was dominated by the American viewpoint, which is that there is no such thing as the energy transition.” The UAE, in addition to bolstering its own voluminous oil and gas production, has good reason to court the Trump administration: On the sidelines of ADIPEC, Microsoft announced it would invest $15 billion in data centers there and that it has secured the administration’s permission to export Nvidia chips for them.

The mixed messaging on oil’s future sets an uneasy tone for the next climate summit, COP30, which will kick off in Brazil this week. There’s still strong momentum for investing in decarbonization, Browne said. But whether, in the near term, the global oil market is in for a period of expansion or contraction, he said, “is about as clear as mud to everybody.”