'Our people came first': Inside ADNOC Gas CEO Fatema Al Nuaimi's response to a crisis

Abu Dhabi: In April this year, ADNOC Gas's Habshan facility came under attack. For Fatema Al Nuaimi, the company's chief executive, the response in those first hours was instinctive rather than strategic.

"What I remember most from those first hours is that our response protected our people. That had to come before everything else," she says.

It is a sentence that could stand in for the wider story of the United Arab Emirates itself — a country that has, in recent years, absorbed shocks from pandemic disruption to regional conflict and consistently emerged with its growth trajectory intact.

ADNOC Gas, the world's largest listed integrated gas processing company and one of the UAE's most strategically important businesses, has been no exception. Under Al Nuaimi's leadership, it has continued to deliver against an ambitious growth programme even as the operating environment around it has grown more complicated.

Al Nuaimi is careful not to frame resilience as something conjured in the moment of crisis.

"Resilience was not something we created after the attack. Much of it had been built quietly beforehand through preparation, strong teams, and a culture that allowed people to act when it matters," she says.

That preparation was tested directly. "During that time, I saw the very best of ADNOC and ADNOC Gas. Our people went above and beyond to keep one another safe while ensuring we continued to deliver the energy our nation depended on every day," she says. Behind the operational response was a more basic obligation: "keeping the lights on, homes cool, refrigerators running, and industries operating across the UAE."

ADNOC Gas supplies more than 60 per cent of the UAE's sales gas requirements and nearly all of the gas needed by major domestic industries.

Al Nuaimi describes teams working "hand in hand" with power, water and industrial customers through the disruption — an experience she says "reinforced the important role ADNOC Gas plays in powering the UAE's progress."

In the second quarter, ADNOC Gas reported earnings of $665 million, above the $400–600 million guidance range the company had set for itself. Final investment decisions and $8.2 billion in EPC contracts were awarded for Phases 2 and 3 of the Rich Gas Development Project during the same period.

In May, ADNOC Gas paid a 2025 dividend of $3.6 billion — the highest payout of any issuer on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange that year, and more than $500 million above the company's original commitment.

Net income has risen from $4.72 billion in FY2023 to $5.2 billion in FY2025, with dividends growing from $3.25 billion to $3.6 billion over the same period — a trajectory the company intends to sustain through a progressive dividend policy that commits to 5 per cent annual increases through 2030.

ADNOC Gas was listed on the ADX in 2023. In the three years since, Al Nuaimi says the business has been reshaped from the ground up. "In the last three years, we have evolved from a collection of world-class operating assets into an integrated, publicly listed gas company with a clear value proposition," she says, noting the company is now the second-largest listed company on the exchange.

"By transforming world-scale resources into world-class outcomes, we have redefined what's possible," she says, pointing to a sharper focus on "creating value from every molecule, strengthening customer relationships and delivering long-term returns for our shareholders."

That value chain, she notes, touches everyday life more directly than most realise. "Every aluminium smelter, every cement plant, every air conditioner in the country: there is a molecule of ours behind it," she says. "While many people may never see our operations firsthand, they benefit from them every day."

ADNOC Gas is now pursuing one of the largest gas growth programmes in the industry, targeting a 45 per cent increase in volumes over the next four years, backed by an estimated $28 billion in investment.

Central to that expansion is Ruwais LNG, which will more than double the company's LNG capacity with an additional 9.6 million tonnes per annum and is being built as the first LNG facility in the Middle East and North Africa to run on clean power. The company is targeting 60 per cent EBITDA growth by 2030 against 2023 levels.

Al Nuaimi rejects the idea that speed and discipline pull in opposite directions. "Speed and discipline are not competing objectives. In fact, discipline is what enables us to move faster and with greater confidence," she says. "Growth creates opportunity, but discipline is what turns that opportunity into lasting value."

Technology is central to that discipline. ADNOC Gas is deploying aerial drones, four-legged inspection robots and tank-climbing crawlers across its operations — tools the company says can cut inspection costs by up to 75 per cent and complete certain inspections 15 times faster, while keeping workers out of hazardous environments. ADNOC Gas' own estimate places the associated savings at over $900 million.

But Al Nuaimi is emphatic that technology is not the whole answer. "Our greatest advantage will not be artificial intelligence alone. It will be people who know how to use it to make better decisions, solve harder problems and create more value," she says.

Beyond the UAE, the company's LNG, LPG and naphtha now reach more than 20 markets across Asia, Europe and the Middle East. "Ruwais LNG is transformational for ADNOC Gas and for the UAE," Al Nuaimi says. "It gives us the scale, customer relationships and portfolio flexibility to become a significant global LNG player."

Al Nuaimi — a chemical engineer by training who moved early into marketing and research — is candid about how uneven access to senior technical roles used to be.

"When I began my career, it was far less common to see women across the full energy value chain, particularly in operational, engineering and technical roles," she says on Emirati Women’s Day.

The figures she cites suggest meaningful movement since. Across the ADNOC Group, women now hold 26.4 per cent of senior management positions and make up approximately 25 per cent of new UAE National hires, with female representation across the workforce having doubled since 2016 — particularly in engineering, operations and artificial intelligence.

Nearly 150 engineers graduated from ADNOC's AI Accelerators Programme in 2025, with Emirati women accounting for more than 40 per cent of that cohort. At ADNOC Gas specifically, approximately 95 per cent of women in technical roles are Emirati.

"A young woman cannot aspire to a job she has never seen anyone like her do," Al Nuaimi says. "When young women see others leading plants, managing complex operations, developing new technologies or running major businesses, they can begin to imagine themselves taking the same path."

She frames the company's focus accordingly: not simply hiring women, but ensuring they "gain the operational experience, demanding assignments and sponsorship needed to progress into leadership roles."

Al Nuaimi describes her own leadership style as having shifted substantially since her early career. "Earlier in my career, I thought leadership was about being the person with the answer. Today, I see it very differently," she says. "Strong leaders don't create followers. They create decision-makers."

That extends to how she now approaches uncertainty — a theme that runs through the Habshan response as much as the growth strategy. "Leadership is not about waiting for perfect information," she says. "It is about understanding what matters most, making the best decision possible with the information available and having the agility to adapt as circumstances change."

Her advice to Emirati women entering energy and other male-dominated industries is direct: "Build expertise, stay curious and have the confidence to take on opportunities before you feel completely ready. Growth rarely happens inside your comfort zone."

She adds a note of gratitude toward the environment that shaped her own path: "I am deeply grateful to the UAE's visionary leadership for creating an environment where women are empowered to contribute and lead," she says, extending particular thanks to Dr Sultan Al Jaber, ADNOC Gas Chairperson, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Managing Director and Group CEO of ADNOC, Executive Chairman of XRG and Chairman of Masdar.

For a company managing a $28 billion growth programme, an evolving domestic energy mix and expanding international commitments, the events of April remain a reference point rather than a footnote.

Al Nuaimi's account of that period — protect people first, lean on preparation built long before the crisis, keep the country's industries running regardless — doubles as a description of how ADNOC Gas intends to manage the years ahead: fast, but not undisciplined; global, but anchored first at home.