Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has completed a structured financing deal worth up to $11bn to support the development phase of the offshore gas project Hail and Ghasha. The operation involves project partners Italian company Eni and Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited (PTTEP).
An uncommon financial structure in the sector
The financing is based on monetising future gas production from the project’s midstream segment while allowing ADNOC and its partners to retain strategic and operational control of the assets. The use of a non-recourse financing structure, rarely seen at this scale, isolates the processing infrastructure and relies on long-term contracted gas flows as repayment security.
More than 20 financial institutions, including major regional and international banks, participated in the transaction, according to ADNOC. The lending group includes key entities from the Middle East, Asia and Europe, reflecting strong confidence in the project’s commercial strength and ADNOC’s delivery record.
A key project in the UAE’s gas strategy
The Hail and Ghasha complex is part of the wider Ghasha offshore concession, located off the coast of Abu Dhabi. At plateau, it is expected to deliver around 1.8 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day, supporting the national goal of boosting domestic supply and reducing import dependency.
The financing structure adopted for Hail and Ghasha follows a series of similar large-scale infrastructure operations by ADNOC over the past decade. These include multi-billion-dollar oil and gas pipeline deals and build-own-operate-transfer projects aimed at optimising offshore efficiency and onshore water use.
A potential platform for future developments
ADNOC has indicated that this financing model could be replicated for other large-scale developments. The flexibility in capital allocation without burdening the group’s overall balance sheet is viewed as a long-term strategic advantage amid rising financial discipline across the sector.
The Hail and Ghasha project also serves as a showcase for ADNOC’s internal technologies, particularly those developed by its Thamama Center of Excellence, which provides digital and artificial intelligence-based solutions for energy production optimisation.
