Adnoc Drilling targets technology development and Gulf expansion

• Regional push via acquisitions
• Wants to sell proprietary oilfield tech
• Achieving ‘scale alone is not enough’

Abu Dhabi-listed Adnoc Drilling is looking to expand beyond its core business of providing rigs to oil and gas sites.

It wants to sell new oilfield technologies more widely, developed through its own operations via a joint venture with Alpha Dhabi, a major holding company.

The group, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), has also used recent deals to move beyond its home market in the United Arab Emirates.

A regional push includes an 80 percent stake in MB Petroleum Services (MBPS), which operates in Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and a 70 percent stake in SLB Land Drilling Company (SLDC), whose rigs operate in Oman and Kuwait.

Together, the two businesses give Adnoc Drilling a 30-rig platform across the Gulf. The company operates more than 170 rigs in total.

The firm, which is listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and has seen its shares rise 11 percent this year, also operates a joint venture with Alpha Dhabi Holding focused on energy technology called Enersol.

For Abdulla Bin Desmal, Adnoc Drilling’s vice president of investments, “scale” is not enough. He spoke to AGBI about acquisitions and taking technology into new markets and capturing more value from each well.

AGBI Which countries and regions hold the most promise for new investments?

Abdulla Bin Desmal The Middle East offers a very compelling runway. Across the region, producers are investing in capacity, efficiency and more sophisticated well delivery, which plays directly to Adnoc Drilling’s strengths. Oman and Kuwait are particularly attractive because they combine resilient drilling demand with established energy ecosystems and long-term service needs. Through MBPS and SLDC, we now have operating platforms, customer relationships and local market knowledge in place. The opportunity from here is to bring more of Adnoc Drilling’s technology, well solutions and integrated services capability into those markets and turn regional presence into a broader growth engine.

AGBI What does an attractive acquisition target actually look like for Adnoc Drilling today?

ABD The most attractive targets are those that accelerate Adnoc Drilling’s next chapter: becoming a broader, higher-value regional energy services platform. Scale matters, but scale alone is not enough.

AGBI How do you decide whether to buy a capability rather than build it yourselves?

ABD We build where we already have the capability and time to scale it ourselves. We buy where speed, differentiation or market access changes the economics. For us, an acquisition has to do more than add revenue; it has to strengthen the platform.

AGBI What can Adnoc Drilling do with MBPS and SLDC that they couldn’t achieve independently?

ABD Adnoc Drilling can now add scale, capital, technology, integrated services and well solutions capability around those platforms. We are already seeing early evidence of cross-border synergy, including one of our repurposed land rigs commencing operations in Oman through the MBPS platform. The next opportunity is to move beyond asset utilisation and build higher-value service intensity around each well.

AGBI Is the core idea with Enersol to acquire technology, prove it within your own rig fleet and then scale it across the wider region?

ABD That is exactly the direction of travel. Enersol is about turning technology into performance and then turning performance into a scalable commercial offering. We can identify advanced technologies, deploy them inside our own operations, prove the impact and then take the strongest solutions to a wider customer base. The early results are powerful: technologies deployed through Enersol and Turnwell are contributing to faster well delivery – up to 19.6 percent quicker – drilling speeds improved by up to 30 percent, and well duration reduced by up to 4.5 days.

AGBI If you look five years ahead, where do you think the biggest longer-term investment opportunities for Adnoc Drilling will be?

ABD The biggest opportunity is to capture more value from every well. The first phase of Adnoc Drilling’s growth story was defined by scale: since IPO, we have grown from 95 rigs to more than 170 and secured more than $25 billion in contract awards. The next phase is about value intensity. That means expanding our well solutions, integrated services, technology-led performance improvement, unconventionals and regional platforms such as MBPS and SLDC. In five years, the prize is not simply a larger drilling company; it is a more diversified, more technology-enabled regional energy services business with a bigger role across the full well lifecycle.

AGBI How different could the company look in terms of the share of the business coming from outside the UAE and from activities beyond traditional drilling?

ABD As the company evolves, a greater share of business is expected to originate from non-domestic markets, with value creation increasingly driven by well solutions, integrated services and performance-enhancing technologies.

Established in 1972 as Adnoc’s sole drilling provider, Adnoc Drilling is today the largest national drilling company in the Middle East by rig fleet size, with plans to expand further within this decade. Find out more at adnocdrilling.ae