Energy reserves give countries trust and reliability, says ADIPEC chair

Abu Dhabi- ADIPEC Chair Abdulmunim Al Kindy said that having large reserves of energy gives a country assured access to its markets and the reliability to move energy from wherever it is sourced and deliver it to the customer. “That is part of the trust energy earns,” he said.

According to Al Kindy, one of the major takeaways of 2026 is that disrupting even part of the supply affects the whole. “If 10 per cent is lost, or even if people merely believe 10 per cent is lost, that 10 per cent shakes confidence in prices across the other 90 percent,” he said, explaining its impact on the economies, and the purchasing power of nations as it distorts both demand and supply. 

The leadership, management and employees of ADNOC, according to Al Kindy, were determined to keep operations running and to keep delivering to the people who trusted in our capability. “That is what we focused on,” he said.

ADIPEC’s technical conference measures success by how many ideas make the leap from technical feasibility to commercial project, according to Haitham Al Jenaibi, EVP, Development & Production (Gas), ADNOC Upstream and ADIPEC 2026 Technical Conference Chair.

“That by itself, to me, is a win,” said Al Jeneibi, describing the goal of helping attendees develop a technically feasible idea into a commercial project.

The event is also expected to offer SMEs the exposure to industry creators, innovators, resilience practices, technology adoption and even niche ideas. According to Al Kindy and Al Jeneibi, participants will take back insights that can potentially develop proposals for future editions.

The event brings together technical leads, subject-matter experts and scientists to discuss and develop ideas for cost-effective, low-emission energy.

Al Juneibi said early concerns that geopolitical events could affect international attendance have not materialised. “The participation is actually bigger than ever,” he said. Submissions have risen from last year, with contributors from 27 new countries.

ADNOC says years of investment in redundancy, which many partners once questioned as commercially unjustified, is now paying off in the face of recent disruption. Speaking at a media briefing, Al Kindy said the company had planned for this kind of scenario a decade or more ago.

“We started building all our assets with the redundancy that is required for us to sustain a level of production,” Al Kindy said. “We are in a region that demands a level of preparedness that is second to none.”

He acknowledged that the spending was controversial at the time. ADNOC nevertheless pursued projects “at great expense, even though at the time they didn’t make any commercial sense,” while partners around the world questioned the flexibility built into its assets, including interconnections between sites and the procurement of additional assets.

He added that the company had always kept a close watch on what it had built over the years.

When the disruption came, he said, those investments proved their worth, allowing ADNOC to keep producing from a different supply base and deliver to different destinations. “It was something that was practised, that was built,” he said. “It was part of the design that ADNOC has in its assets.”

Al Kindy also credited the company’s people, saying regular drills and exercises meant that even as staff turned over across a decade, each new recruit inherited built-in scenarios to practise.

“The events came and it just proved that we were more prepared to deal with it now. We had almost muscle memory as far as what to do in that event,” he said.