- The U.A.E.'s national oil company says it is still in talks with major global oil companies about concessions at its largest fields and has not set a deadline for deciding on the awards.
- Total (NYSE:TOT) is the only company to be awarded a stake in Abu Dhabi National Oil's new venture so far, agreeing in February to pay a $2.2B signing bonus for a 10% share in the onshore concession.
- TOT, along with BP, Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) and Exxon (NYSE:XOM) were all partners in a previous concession that operated the same onshore fields in Abu Dhabi for 75 years until it expired in January 2014; XOM balked at the new terms and decided not to seek to renew its concession.
- Abu Dhabi plans to boost capacity for producing crude oil to 3.5M bbl/day by 2017 from ~3M bbl/day currently.