The UAE has launched ambitious projects in the upstream and downstream sector to reaffirm its place as one of the key players in the regional and global arena.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has been at the forefront of the UAE's oil and gas push, playing a pivotal role in the country's future plans.
The UAE is now working to increase its crude oil production capacity to 3.5 million barrels per day in next few years, Oil Minister Mohammed Al Hamli said.
 Hamli said his country's current production is at 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd), while an additional capacity of 200,000 bpd is expected to come onstream by early next year.
 Hamli said the UAE has the fourth world largest oil reserves estimated at 98 billion barrels and the fifth natural gas reserves of 6.1 trillion cubic metres.
"Continuing investments in production projects should increase the country's output capability to more than 3.5 million bpd in the next few years", he said.
The UAE will next year pump 2.7 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, excluding condensates, Adnoc chief executive Yousef Omair Bin Yousef said.
"We are expecting to produce an additional 200,000 barrels per day in 2006, reaching 2.7 million bpd that year," he said.
The emirates "plan to produce four million bpd in 2015," said Yousef, who is also secretary-general of Abu Dhabi's Supreme Petroleum Council.
The UAE has taken a prominent position among industrialised countries thanks to the vision and wise policies of the late president, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
In agreement with this vision, Adnoc was incorporated as a state owned company on November 27, 1971, to operate in all areas of oil and gas industry.
In a little over three decades, Adnoc has steadily broadened its activities through various subsidiaries in the fields of exploration and production, support services to oil and gas industry, oil refining and gas processing, chemicals and petrochemicals, maritime transportation and refined products and distribution.
During the last five years, Adnoc continued its expansions in upstream and downstream sectors.
Upstream activities include exploration, development, production, and support services to the oil and gas industry.
Downstream, Adnoc is involved in oil refining and gas processing, petrochemicals and chemicals, marine transportation, and the distribution of refined petroleum products.
Other activities include marketing and research and development. Adnoc and its group of companies managed throughout the years to improve their business practices by introducing new technologies thus achieving international recognition for its people related health, safety and environment (HSE) initiatives.
Meanwhile, Emirates National Oil Co (Enoc) said it awarded Foster Wheeler a contract to upgrade its 120,000 barrels per day condensate refinery and was seeking $500 million in Islamic financing for the project.
The project will add a 70,000 bpd hydro-treater and a 36,000 bpd crude catalytic reformer as well as sulphur recovery, tail gas treatment unit, and power flash scene generation.
Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) was mandated to arrange the $500 million Islamic facility under Ijarah structure. Financial close is scheduled for the first quarter of 2006.
The UAE plans to build a new oil refinery with a capacity of 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), Hamli said.
"A new refinery is planned to be built at Fujairah with a capacity to process 300,000 bpd of crude oil," Hamli said.
He said the UAE also planned expansion at existing plants but gave no details.
In another development, Adnoc Distribution has launched a $40.8 million retail expansion plan in Abu Dhabi's western region.
It also plans to have more than 200 service stations in the UAE by 2008, a senior official said.
It is also considering the option of expanding into overseas markets at a later stage.
"We have now 22 service stations in the western region of Abu Dhabi and we plan to add 10 more with an investment of Dh150 million," said Jamal Al Dharif, general manager of Adnoc Distribution.
"We plan to set up the stations on a fast track basis. Already about 40-50 per cent of the design work is completed," he said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan's Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC) will lead a group of Taiwan companies into a $6 billion project to build the world's biggest petrochemical plant in the UAE.
The plant, to be constructed in Abu Dhabi, will include a naphtha cracker with an annual capacity of 1.3 million tonnes of ethylene, said a report.
"Ethylene production will be highly efficient while the cost of producing petrochemical raw materials will be low and the plastics materials will be very internationally competitive," the report quoted CPC vice president Roy Chiu as saying.
The UAE's Dana Gas closed a 2.1 billion dirham ($560 million) initial public offering after attracting so much interest from Gulf investors that the incoming rush of funds affected the Saudi riyal.
Bankers said institutional investors, mainly from the Gulf Arab states, subscribed to as much as 200 times the amount on offer in the run-up to the close. The IPO was open to all Gulf investors and to wholesale investors from outside the region.
Such was the demand for the IPO that scuffles broke out at banks and travel agents struggled to cope with bookings of flights into the UAE, the only country with banks authorised to receive subscriptions. Newspapers said many investors were Saudis.
Borouge has granted project management and financial advisory contract for expanding its facility in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi that will boost current capacity to threefold from 600,000 to two million tonnes per year (tpy).
The need to expand capacity is due to the high demand from Asia/Pacific markets and several Middle Eastern markets for polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene. Completion of the expansion is due in 2010, providing an additional 540,000 tpy to the current PE facility and two 400,000 tonne PP facilities.
The new capacity is intended for high-end-pipe quality material and packaging.
ABB Lummus Global is to provide technology and engineering services for the Borouge ethylene dimerisation and metathesis plant downstream from the Borouge 2 project in Abu Dhabi.
Adnoc subsidiary the National Drilling Company (NDC) has taken delivery of a new Dh100 million ($27.2 million) offshore rig, raising its investments to over Dh1.5 billion in the past five years.
The investment portfolio of the International Petroleum Investment Company's (IPIC) has now touched $8 billion, but the company is looking to expand even further.
IPIC is looking at fresh investments in Asian and North American markets, a senior official said He added that the Abu Dhabi government-owned company is also looking at alternative funding structures.
"We want to see continued growth in our portfolio and extract synergies from our partners as well as bring new alliance partners into our portfolio," Gamal James Harris, investment evaluation adviser, IPIC said.
The UAE is also considering the location and development of a special economic zone for plastics as one of its various strategies for downstream development, an official at Adnoc said.
A special zone would however require incentives for setting up processing units, and therefore the support from production companies and the emirate, said Mohamed Al Azdi, Adnoc's operation co-ordination divisions manager.
One of the likely location would be the Ras Al Khaimah Free Trade Zone, in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah.
After commissioning of proposed new projects around 2010, the UAE expects to have the capability to produce a diversified range of polyethylene, polypropylene, PET and melamine resins.
Currently, Ras Al Khaimah is finalising plans for a joint venture with Iran's National Petrochemical Co to build a 320,000 tonnes per year (tpy) ethylene glycol plant at the free trade zone.
UAE's Dolphin Energy has approved five bidders for the engineering, procurement and construction tender for the Eastern Gas Distribution System, the company said.
Fluor Corporation announced that it has been awarded a contract to provide engineering, procurement and construction and commissioning services for the Habshan Gas Complex Expansion project by Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd (Gasco).
The value of the contract to Fluor is $999 million.
The expansion calls for the installation of two sulphur recovery units with a total capacity of 1,600 tonnes per day, a new acid gas enrichment unit and increasing the capacity of the pressure boosting units to feed the additional associated gas from the Bab oilfield for processing in the current gas treatment trains.
A major revamp and upgrade of the distributed control system is also part of the scope.
Sharjah-based Fal Oil Company, an oil trading firm seeking financing for its tanker fleet expansion, has received an overwhelming response from local and regional banks, said a top official.
A syndicated loan of $89.35 million lead managed by BNP Paribas (Suisse) SA with four local and regional banks participating has been granted to Sharjah-based Fal Oil Company.
Enoc Aviation, a subsidiary of the Enoc Group, was selected by Airbus to fuel the world's biggest passenger jet - the Airbus A380.