Fahad Manzur
XRG, the low carbon energy and chemicals investment arm of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), has secured a stake in Venezuela’s offshore Loran gas licence as part of a consortium with BP and UCC Oil and Gas Holding, a unit of Qatar’s UCC Holding. The award was announced in mid August 2026. XRG will hold an equal working interest alongside BP and UCC in the concession, with BP operating the Loran Phase 2 development. The second phase of Loran holds an estimated 4 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas.
The move marks XRG’s entry into Latin America and is one of the clearest signals yet that Gulf state energy capital is expanding well beyond the region’s own borders.
The Deal and the Field
The Loran licence sits within the wider Loran-Manatee offshore gas accumulation, which straddles the maritime boundary between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago. That cross border geography has historically complicated development, since a single reservoir spanning two jurisdictions requires agreement between both governments before anyone can produce from it.
XRG was established in November 2024 with a stated goal of more than doubling its asset value over the coming decade by targeting demand for low carbon energy and chemicals. Gas and liquefied natural gas across Latin America is a declared plank of that strategy, and Loran is the first concrete step. Coverage of the award is available from The National and AGBI.
Two Gulf States in One Consortium
The composition of the consortium is the detail worth pausing on. Abu Dhabi’s XRG and Qatar’s UCC are sitting in the same deal, alongside a European supermajor. Gulf states are frequently framed as competitors in energy and in the race to attract capital and talent. This structure suggests a more pragmatic reality on large international projects, where sharing risk on a technically demanding cross border field makes more sense than bidding against each other for it.
It also fits a broader pattern. Sovereign linked Gulf investment vehicles have been steadily moving up the value chain and out of the region, taking positions in overseas energy assets, technology infrastructure and, increasingly, venture capital. The same week this licence was awarded, Qatari and Abu Dhabi backed funds appeared in a payments technology funding round in the United States.
Why GCC Readers Should Track This
If you work in or around the Gulf economy, or you are considering it, deals like this shape the job market more than they might appear to.
Energy money funds the diversification programmes. The technology hiring, the free zones, the digital economy targets and the startup funding across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are financed substantially by hydrocarbon and petrochemical returns. When those returns get reinvested into new international assets, the diversification budgets behind Vision 2030 and equivalent programmes stay funded.
Overseas projects create regional roles. A Latin American gas development managed partly from Abu Dhabi generates engineering, project management, compliance, legal, finance and data roles based in the Gulf rather than at the field. That is where the professional opportunity usually sits.
The skills demand is broader than petroleum engineering. Projects of this complexity run on data analysis, systems integration, remote monitoring, cybersecurity for industrial control systems and heavy regulatory reporting. Those are transferable technical skills, and they are in demand across Dubai, Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi.
The practical caution is that large offshore developments are slow. Phase 2 of Loran will take years to reach production, and cross border fields carry political risk on top of technical risk. This is a signal about where Gulf capital is going, not a promise about output.
