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TotalEnergies has signed agreement to secure partnership in the ADNOC Onshore-operated Bab Gas Cap Concession in Abu Dhabi, with a 10% interest, alongside ADNOC (60%), bp (10%), CNPC (8%), JODCO/INPEX (5%), ZhenHua (4%) and GS Energy (3%)

The new concession will enable the partners to develop the large gas cap resources of the Bab onshore field, with a target production rate of 1.5 billion cubic feet per day. It builds on the 2015 renewal for 40 years of the Onshore oil concession (formerly ADCO).

Since then, TotalEnergies, alongside ADNOC and its partners, has worked to advance the development of the Bab Gas Cap, which represents a significant growth opportunity. The project also aligns with Abu Dhabi’s strategy to expand both its liquids production from condensates and its gas output while reinforcing its LNG value chain, notably the Ruwais LNG project, in which TotalEnergies also holds 10% interest.

“I would like to thank the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs of Abu Dhabi for its continued trust. In the current context, this entry in a new concession underlines TotalEnergies’ commitment to stand alongside ADNOC, our historic partner in Abu Dhabi, and to keep contributing to the development of the United Arab Emirates’ significant hydrocarbon resources. The Bab Gas Cap project is well in line with TotalEnergies’ Upstream strategy by adding low-cost, low-emissions resources with significant potential for production growth,” said Patrick Pouyanné, chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies.

Dr. Manar Al Moneef, scientist, capital architect and chief investment officer of NEOM shares learnings from twenty years of infrastructure investment in the Gulf

There is a common misconception about what makes large-scale infrastructure successful. Many assume success is determined when a project is announced, the business case is approved, or the financing is secured. In reality, the true test comes much later.

Every transformational project reaches moments when assumptions evolve, technologies advance, markets shift, and geopolitical realities change. The question is never whether circumstances will change — they always do. The question is whether the institution behind the project has the capability, discipline, and conviction to adapt while remaining committed to its long-term objective.

After more than twenty years working across infrastructure, energy, healthcare, investment, and economic development, I have come to believe that the greatest determinant of success is not the original forecast, the technology, or even the market opportunity. It is the strength of the institution behind the capital.

Projects that create lasting economic value rarely unfold exactly as planned. They succeed because they are supported by institutions capable of learning, adjusting, and continuing to execute without losing sight of their strategic destination.

That distinction matters because the Gulf’s development story is often misunderstood.

The region’s greatest achievement is not that it has launched ambitious projects. Many countries can do that. Its real achievement is building institutions capable of sustaining long-term ambition through economic cycles, technological transformation, and periods of global uncertainty.

The institutions behind long-term success

Much of the discussion around sovereign investment focuses on scale. While the Gulf’s sovereign institutions collectively manage trillions of dollars, scale alone does not explain the region’s ability to deliver transformational infrastructure. What differentiates successful institutions is their ability to think beyond market cycles while continuously creating long-term value. In my experience, three characteristics consistently distinguish institutions that endure:

Strategic clarity. Successful institutions maintain a clear long-term direction while remaining flexible in execution. Markets evolve, technologies improve, and priorities shift, but adapting the route does not require abandoning the destination.

Adaptive execution. Every major project evolves. New information emerges, better solutions become available, and economic conditions change. Strong institutions embrace these changes, improving execution without compromising strategic intent. Adaptability is not a departure from strategy—it is often what allows strategy to succeed.

Institutional commitment. Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic is the ability to sustain commitment over decades. Projects evolve, plans are refined, and priorities are reassessed, but the broader objective remains clear. That continuity enables infrastructure, industries, and capabilities whose value can only be realised over generations.
Together, these characteristics transform ambition into sustained execution.

Three examples of long-term execution

Across the Gulf, there are many examples of institutions demonstrating these principles.

Qatar’s North Field expansion provides a compelling example. The project required significant capital, long-term planning, and confidence in the future role of natural gas in global energy markets. More importantly, it required institutions willing to make decisions based on decades rather than quarterly performance.

Saudi Arabia’s electricity infrastructure is one of the strongest. Over several decades, the Kingdom has consistently invested in generation, transmission, and grid reliability to support industrialisation, urbanisation, and economic diversification. As demand increased and technologies advanced, the system continued to evolve. Today, it stands among the region’s most sophisticated power networks, providing the foundation for future economic growth.

The UAE’s Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant reflects the same institutional discipline. Building a nuclear programme required decades of planning, rigorous governance, technical excellence, and sustained commitment. Beyond generating electricity, Barakah demonstrates what institutions can achieve when they remain focused on a strategic objective while successfully managing complexity and risk.

Different countries. Different sectors. Different technologies. Yet they share the same underlying principle: long-term vision supported by institutions capable of sustained execution.
Vision creates direction. Institutions transform that direction into outcomes.

What this moment is teaching us

The world is navigating one of the most complex periods in recent history. Economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, technological disruption, demographic change, and rapidly evolving industries are reshaping the global economy.

In this environment, resilience has become one of the most valuable institutional capabilities. Not resilience as resistance to change. Resilience as the ability to adapt while maintaining direction.

The institutions that will define the next generation of economic growth are not those that attempt to predict every outcome perfectly. They are those capable of remaining disciplined in purpose, flexible in execution, and committed to creating long-term value despite uncertainty.

That is the lesson I have observed throughout my career.

Markets will change. Technologies will evolve. Assumptions will be challenged. The future will rarely unfold exactly as expected. But institutions built on strong governance, strategic clarity, and the ability to adapt without losing focus will continue to create value long after individual market cycles have passed.

Ultimately, the question is not whether projects will encounter challenges. Every meaningful project does. The question is whether the institution behind it has been designed to adapt, endure, and continue building through change.

Because that is how transformative infrastructure is delivered. That is how economies strengthen their foundations. And that is how nations turn long-term ambition into lasting prosperity.

TA’ZIZ, a joint venture between ADNOC and ADQ, has signed long-term agreements spanning offtake, feedstock and sales across its chemicals portfolio, valued at US$28.5bn (AED104.6bn)

Signed at the Make it in the Emirates Forum, the agreements, valued at US$28.5bn, secure both global offtake and reliable local feedstocks, allowing for large-scale chemical production within the UAE and reinforcing TA’ZIZ’s role in building a fully integrated domestic chemicals ecosystem. The deals include sale agreements with ADNOC and Proman for methanol; Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) for caustic soda; Mitsubishi Corporation for ethylene dichloride (EDC), vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) and caustic soda; Mitsui & Co. for EDC and caustic soda; Sanmar Group for EDC and VCM; Tricon for PVC, EDC and caustic soda; and Vinmar for EDC and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

ADNOC Gas secured a 25-year feedstock agreement to supply natural gas to the TA'ZIZ methanol project valued at over $5 billion (AED18.4 billion). TA’ZIZ also agreed a 20 year salt supply agreement with Abu Dhabi based Sama Salt to support production at its PVC complex.

Mashal Saoud Al-Kindi, CEO of TA’ZIZ, said, “These long term agreements represent a defining milestone for TA’ZIZ and for the UAE’s industrial growth ambitions. By securing both global demand and reliable local feedstock, we are translating vision into delivery, anchoring world scale chemicals production, strengthening domestic value chains and creating enduring economic value, jobs and supply chain resilience for the UAE.”

Together, these agreements leverage local resources to secure a reliable and sustainable supply of critical raw materials, further strengthening domestic value chains and advancing the UAE’s industrial self sufficiency.

TA’ZIZ is a manufacturing, industrial services, logistics and utilities ecosystem that enables the production of transition fuels and new products across the chemicals value chain, supporting ADNOC’s ambition to become a top three global chemicals player as well as the UAE’s industrial development and economic diversification ambitions.

The TA’ZIZ Industrial Chemicals Zone is set to produce 4.7 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of chemicals once construction is completed in 2028. This includes a 1 mtpa ammonia plant, a 1.8 mtpa methanol plant and 1.9 mtpa of marketable products from its integrated polyvinyl chloride (PVC) complex. The PVC complex, which produces PVC, ethylene dichloride (EDC), vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), and caustic soda, will be one of the world’s top three largest single site PVC complexes.

Also at the Make it at the Emirates Forum, TA’ZIZ and Alpha Dhabi Holding announced a strategic collaboration agreement for around US$10 bn (AED36.7bn) in capital investment in new industrial chemicals in the TA’ZIZ industrial chemicals ecosystem in Al Ruwais Industrial City, Al Dhafra region of Abu Dhabi.

The partnership could produce up to 14 new chemicals, delivering around 2.2mn tonnes per annum (mtpa) of additional chemical capacity in the TA’ZIZ industrial chemicals ecosystem in Al Ruwais Industrial City. The new chemicals, which include styrene and polystyrenes, acrylic acid and derivates, polyols, MDI, epoxy resins and linear alpha-olefins, are based on domestic demand and could substitute key products currently imported into the UAE, while strengthening local supply chain resilience. The partnership supports the UAE’s national industrial priorities, including the Make it in the Emirates (MIITE) initiative and the country’s industrial strategy, by strengthening domestic manufacturing capability and advancing self-sufficiency in strategically important chemical products.

Silverwell has been awarded a multi-million-dollar, multi-well contract with a leading Middle East operator for the deployment of its Digital Intelligent Artificial Lift (DIAL) technology

The programme covers high-production offshore assets, including premium high-rate extended reach drilling (ERD) wells, dual-string completions and auto-gas lift applications.

Optimising gas-lift wells normally requires costly interventions to change valves and collect downhole data. Changing valve settings can mean taking a well offline, replacing the valves and unloading the well, resulting in lost production and high operating costs.

With DIAL, operators can avoid this disruption by adjusting valve settings remotely from the surface, including effective orifice size, in response to changing well conditions. Permanent downhole sensors provide real-time injection rate and temperature data, enabling continuous optimisation without intervention.

The system enables deeper gas injection, higher production rates and lower operating costs, and has proven reliable in high-pressure, acidic environments. DIAL also incorporates Silverwell's Auto-Unloading capability, which automates well start-up and unloading to accelerate production.

"The industry has long treated well intervention as an unavoidable cost of gas lift. It is not," said Darrell Johnson, chief executive officer of Silverwell. "DIAL enables operators to monitor and optimise gas lift performance remotely in real time, boosting production, lowering costs and improving the value of a well over its lifetime."

The award is a strong signal of the growing adoption of all-electric intelligent completions among Middle East operators managing high-rate offshore assets, with offshore exploration and development on the rise in the region, as illustrated by ADNOC's recent US$6.2bn (AED22.6bn) final investment decision (FID) to develop the Umm Shaif Gas Cap in the Umm Shaif and Nasr offshore concession, Kuwait's push to develop three offshore oil and gas fields discovered in 2025 and Aramco' s focus on expanding and maintaining offshore fields with projects such as the Zuluf crude oil increment.

How do complacency and human factors contribute to workplace injuries, and how can you prevent complacency-related injuries and incidents?

That is the subject of a webinar hosted by HSE Review in association with SafeStart, to take place on Wednesday 1st April 2026 at 2pm GST, which will shine a light on the neuroscience behind competence, complacency and human factors.

Safety professionals have known for years that “complacency is a silent killer.” They have also suspected that complacency was a contributing factor in almost every unintentional injury or incident. Unfortunately, from a neuroscience perspective, it is impossible to stop people from becoming complacent once they are competent. And for high-risks tasks in particular, competence is a must.

Even more unfortunately, many (most) companies do not know what to do to help their employees deal with complacency, which leads to mind not on task/risk.

In this session, participants will:
• Understand the neuroscience behind complacency and why it cannot be eliminated once competence is achieved
• Recognise the two stages of the complacency continuum and how human factors impact critical decision-making
• Learn practical skills to prevent complacency-related injuries, including attentive habits, looking for risk patterns in others, analysing close calls and small errors to prevent agonising over large ones, and using self-triggering skills, to deal with rushing, frustration and fatigue which, when combined with complacency, can cause fatalities
• Explore how concepts such as fail-safe can help compensate for complacency leading to mind not on task.

Register for the webinar here

Our speaker is Larry Wilson, a pioneer in the area of Human Factors in safety. He has been a safety consultant for over 25 years and has worked on-site with hundreds of companies worldwide. Larry is the author of SafeStart, an advanced safety and performance awareness programme, successfully implemented in more than 4,500 companies in 75 countries, with more than five million people trained. He is the moderator of the SafeConnection expert panels series and has authored and co-authored a number of books, the latest being “25 Years of Original Thought-Innovations in Safety, Human Error and Performance”. Larry is also an active keynote speaker at health and safety conferences around the globe (32 countries so far).

Participants are guaranteed an hour of engaging and thought-provoking interactive discussion and debate and will take away the understanding, skills and strategies to help prevent complacency-related injuries and incidents.

So don’t delay, register for the webinar here

SafeStart Trainer Certification – Global Training Series

Following strong demand last year and impact across global markets, we’re also launching the SafeStart Trainer Certification – Global Training Series, starting with Dubai on 7–8 April 2026.

This is a practical, human factors–based certification designed to help organisations reduce incidents, strengthen decision-making, and improve overall safety performance, on and off the job.

Find out more information and register here:

DNV has published a recommended practice (RP) for offshore hydrogen pipelines, supporting safe design, operation and requalification of pipeline infrastructure for transporting hydrogen

DNV-RP-F123 Hydrogen pipeline systems addresses hydrogen-specific integrity and safety considerations. It supplements DNV’s established submarine pipeline standard, DNV-ST-F101 and adds additional guidance tailored to transporting hydrogen gas and hydrogen blends in pipeline systems. It is relevant for new pipeline developments as well as for the requalifying of existing offshore infrastructure for hydrogen transport, supporting broader efforts to scale hydrogen networks.

Hydrogen is expected to play an increasing role in cutting emissions from hard-to-decarbonise sectors. However the transportation of hydrogen by pipeline faces certain risks and considerations, such as embrittlement.

DNV-RP-F123 has been developed through the H2Pipe joint industry project (JIP), which ran from 2021 to 2026 and brought together 37 industry partners across operators, manufacturers, engineering companies and academic advisors to provide guidance for engineering projects and qualification work.

The next step is large-scale testing to validate data and advance existing standards. This phase will include full-scale pipe testing at DNV’s Spadeadam Research and Development Facility. The results will feed into the continued development of DNV-RP-F123 and future guidance.

“Hydrogen service fundamentally changes the integrity picture for pipeline systems,” explained Prajeev Rasiah, executive vice president and regional director for Northern Europe, Energy Systems at DNV, “it cannot be treated as a simple variant of natural gas. This recommended practice moves beyond theoretical study to provide an evidence-based framework for assessing hydrogen-specific risks in design, requalification, and operation. By closing the gaps around material suitability and safety margins, we are giving teams the technical clarity needed to move projects from the study phase into execution. This is particularly vital for requalifying existing infrastructure, where the guidance helps define exactly what must be tested or upgraded to ensure a safe reliable and sustainable transition.”

“The objective of the H2Pipe JIP is to build guidance grounded in shared data and real technical experience from testing,” added Philippe Darcis, chairman of the H2Pipe JIP Steering Committee and Pipeline Technology Senior Director at Tenaris. “The real value of the H2Pipe JIP is in turning years of shared data into credible, site-ready guidance that engineers can use to scale hydrogen infrastructure. This is a practical tool built to reduce the 'unknowns' that often stall investment. Because it was developed through industry-wide collaboration, it gives operators a robust basis for making decisions, allowing us to move forward with fewer assumptions and greater confidence in our safety and performance standards.”