Adnoc Gas Still Evaluating Options to Bypass Strait of Hormuz — Update

By Adam Whittaker

Adnoc Gas's shipments of liquefied natural gas through the Strait of Hormuz remain below prewar levels, but the company isn't yet ready to decide whether to build a facility to bypass the waterway, Chief Executive Officer Fatema Al Nuaimi said in an interview.

Majority-owned by state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., Adnoc Gas has been examining ways to reduce its reliance on the strait after Iran throttled the region's oil and gas exports earlier this year by targeting tankers passing through the chokepoint with missiles and drones.

One option the company has considered is an LNG export facility on the country's east coast at the Port of Fujairah, which sits on the Gulf of Oman outside the Strait of Hormuz.

"At this stage, there are no decisions made on any of these projects," Al Nuaimi said, adding that the projects remain under evaluation and study.

Her comments came after Adnoc Gas's third-quarter earnings jumped from the prior quarter, aided by increased volumes of high-margin LNG for export and stronger demand in the United Arab Emirates. Third-quarter net income rebounded, doubling to $1.34 billion from the prior quarter.

Adnoc Gas was able to export more LNG through the Strait of Hormuz in the third quarter than in the prior period.

"It is a month-by-month improvement in the number of cargoes that are crossing the Strait of Hormuz," the company's finance chief, Peter van Driel, said in the same interview.

The improved earnings enabled Adnoc Gas on Tuesday to increase its full-year net income guidance to at least $4 billion, but warned this is subject to its ability to ship products out of the region. It had previously seen it between $3.5 billion and $4 billion.

Currently, shipments still aren't at their prewar levels, according to van Driel, despite the U.S. Navy escorting ships transiting the waterway.

While Iran continues to attack ships intermittently, crude oil flows from the Persian Gulf have rebounded after producers sought workarounds.

Adnoc Gas's parent company Adnoc has used pipelines to get oil flowing, as well as shuttle runs that see tankers loaded inside the Gulf then exit Hormuz and transfer the crude and petroleum products to vessels waiting outside the waterway. State-owned Saudi Aramco is exporting via the East-West pipeline, which connects Saudi Arabia's oil-producing Eastern Province to the Red Sea.

However, significant volumes of gas from Qatar have been removed from the market after production facilities were hit early in the war, and Adnoc Gas's exports in September were around 88% of 2025 levels. Ships that are moving through the strait have tended to transit with their transponders off, making it hard to track exact export flows.

While the market for gas and LNG is exceptionally tight right now, record amounts of new LNG export capacity are due to come online in the coming years, prompting some to speculate on an impending supply glut.

But Al Nuaimi isn't worried. In her near 30 years in the gas industry she said she has seen five cycles of warnings about supply tsunamis.

"The result is we end up with a bigger market," she added.

Write to Adam Whittaker at adam.whittaker@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 10, 2026 04:18 ET (09:18 GMT)