ADIPEC 2026 Closes With $67 Billion in Agreements, Up 26% on Last Year

The event, hosted by ADNOC and billed by organisers as the world's largest energy gathering, drew 240,000 attendees from 170 countries and more than 40 government ministers and policymakers, including senior officials from Germany, Canada, Egypt, Austria, Japan, Kazakhstan and Nigeria. The organisers did not break down the $67 billion figure by deal or say how much of it was binding investment rather than memorandums and framework agreements.

The headline number matters for Abu Dhabi because ADIPEC is the emirate's main showcase for its pitch to sit at the junction of oil and gas, industrial finance and artificial intelligence. This year that pitch leaned harder on technology. The exhibition's AI Zone was 20 per cent larger than in 2025, the organisers said, with Microsoft, Nvidia, IBM, Dell, Huawei, Honeywell, Siemens, Unitree, Presight, AIQ and Etisalat among the companies taking part. Exhibits included Gecko Robotics' Raptor inspection robot and Honeywell's Forge Upstream platform.

The biggest AI announcement of the week was ADNOC's multi-year partnership with OpenAI and G42, signed on November 2. Under the arrangement, G42 provides sovereign computing infrastructure, OpenAI supplies its models and ADNOC contributes its industrial data and operational expertise, according to reports of the deal. Financial terms were not disclosed. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman spoke at the opening ceremony, where he said frontier AI combined with sovereign infrastructure and industry know-how could help energy companies make decisions faster and improve operations, according to the media office's account.

Two other transactions stood out among those the organisers singled out. XRG, ADNOC's international investment arm, agreed a $1.5 billion deal to buy Shell's stake in Australia's North West Shelf LNG project, adding to its gas portfolio and its links with Asia-Pacific buyers. TA'ZIZ, the Ruwais-based chemicals and industrial platform, reached financial close on AED5.1 billion of financing for its TA'ZIZ Terminal and TA'ZIZ Ammonia projects, with both transactions oversubscribed, the media office said.

The exhibition was the largest yet by floor space, with 2,260 companies across 16 halls, 30 country pavilions and four specialist zones. Exhibitors from China, the United States and Italy were the most numerous. Asian participation rose 12 per cent to 353 exhibiting companies, with national pavilions from China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.

Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and ADNOC's managing director and group chief executive, used his opening address to set out five priorities for energy security: expanding accessible supply, securing routes to market, using operational intelligence, mobilising policy, capital and insurance support to keep trade moving, and investing in people. The theme of resilience ran through a week in which shipping in the Gulf has faced attacks and regional flights have been disrupted.

Abdulmunim Saif Al Kindy, chairman of ADIPEC 2026, said the event had been "defined by energy resilience and intelligence" and that the agreements struck were "particularly significant against the backdrop of this year's extraordinary challenges."

The conference programme ran to 13 tracks, more than 380 sessions and over 1,800 speakers. ADIPEC returns to Abu Dhabi from November 1 to 4, 2027.