Abu Dhabi’s state oil producer will spend $40 billion (Dh146.93 billion) on crude, natural gas, petrochemical and refinery projects from 2010 through 2014. Gas projects under construction account for $25 billion of that, Mohammad Sahoo Al Suwaidi, chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd. (Gasco), said. “These include Integrated Gas [IGD] and Shah Gas development projects,” Al Suwaidi added. “Adnoc will soon be launching an effort to further develop onshore and offshore reserves, with an additional emphasis on developing offshore gas resources,” Al Suwaidi said. “Our aim is to meet the rising domestic gas demand, which is growing by approximately 15 per cent annually, and to open up opportunities for international oil companies.” The emirate last month signed an agreement with OMV AG of Austria and Wintershall AG, the oil-producing unit of Germany’s BASF SE, to evaluate a sour gas and condensate field in its western desert. It aims to start producing about 500 million cubic feet a day of sour gas in 2014 from a $10 billion venture with Occidental Petroleum Corp. at the Shah field in the same region. Abu Dhabi will soon start the Fujairah pipeline, Ali Al Jarwan, chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Co, said. Oil exports from the 1.5 million-barrel-per-day Abu Dhabi crude oil pipeline, an all new pipeline that runs from Habshan in Abu Dhabi to Fujairah, is expected to start from August, “Within July, we will have the commissioning [of the pipeline]. Once we have the commissioning, in August, it’s expected the flow of oil for exports will start,” Al Jarwan told reporters at a news conference. The $3.3 billion, 370-kilometre Habshan-Fujairah pipeline is strategic as it would allow the UAE to have direct access to the Indian Ocean for its crude oil exports. It will also give the country an option to bypass the Strait of Hormuz for its oil shipments should there be a problem in that water channel through which nearly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil passes. He said the Abu Dhabi government-controlled investment firm Mubadala Development Co. plans to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving facility at Fujairah to enable LNG imports which would help meet the UAE’s growing energy requirements.