It's been a busy week at Adipec in Abu Dhabi.
The American entourage arrived in great numbers and with a very clear message again this time, though somewhat different to Gastech in Milan.
From energy dominance in September to “there is no energy transition, only energy addition”, which was the central line from Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum.
Two other major themes became very clear. It is about the roll-out of AI across the oil, gas and energy complex. This is about reducing shutdowns, improving health and safety, monitoring people and preparing to bring in robotics.
The industry is going to move at a velocity that I don't think most of the world really quite comprehends just yet.
I sat down with Musabbeh Al Kaabi, chief executive of Adnoc Upstream. He had a very clear message when I asked: “Have we just received a reality check from the Americans in terms of, there is no transition, only addition?”
He said: “Focus on signal, tune out the noise."
We're in an expanding demand regime and Adnoc and the UAE will be there full and square to deliver on multiple fronts.
The energy needs for AI data centres will come from oil, gas, renewables and nuclear. It was clear that the UAE is, one could say, more open to multiple energy sources – a broad church, if you will – compared to the narrative from the US.
Mr Al Kaabi believes that data centre demand won't just triple by 2040, but will probably rise by four times. The demand is real and it is significant. When we began to talk about how he's rolling out AI across the energy stack upstream, he talked about shutdowns and improvement in productivity.
Shutdowns being reduced by nearly 50 per cent, cost reductions, emissions down, productivity up. We naturally finished off with a conversation about the state of the play in the oil market.
When I put it to Mr Al Kaabi that a lot of market participants are seeing sizeable surplus and the risk of $50 per barrel oil, he responded by saying he thinks a lot of the supply is coming from expensive, unconventional sources.
Sensitivity is important and if we see material drop in price, he believes that the reaction by the frackers would be much quicker this time.
