Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (Adnoc) is considering buying the natural gas portfolio of Aethon Energy Management, one of the most active drillers in the Haynesville shale basin, which spans East Texas and North Louisiana. The UAE state-owned energy giant has already hired international consultants to evaluate the deal, which could be worth up to $9 billion, according to sources. Aethon’s assets are located near key LNG terminals in the Gulf of Mexico, making them attractive to Adnoc, which is building its own liquefied natural gas pipeline, Bloomberg has reported.
The Emirati company’s interest coincides with the UAE’s broader initiative to invest $1.4 trillion in the United States over the next decade — a commitment announced after President Donald Trump and Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed met. This year alone, sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co. has already signed an agreement to buy a stake in the KimmeridgeSoTex gas projects, while Adnoc has taken a stake in LNG exporter NextDecade and entered ExxonMobil’s hydrogen pilot project in Texas. Thus, a potential purchase of Aethon would be a logical step in the emirate’s strategy to gain a foothold in the production-liquefaction-export chain in the world’s largest gas market.
Adnoc’s strategy: from oil to gas molecules and blue hydrogen
Over the past 12 months, Adnoc has become one of the most active deal-makers in the global energy sector, acquiring assets from the North Sea to South Africa. Following the deal with NextDecade, the company secured a 20-year offtake LNG contract, minimizing pricing risks and opening a supply channel to Asia. The investment in ExxonMobil’s hydrogen project completes this chain, giving Adnoc a foothold in future low-carbon exports.
The acquisition of Aethon would give Adnoc direct access to the Haynesville shale gas, one of the lowest-cost fields in the US, with a production capacity of over 15 billion cubic feet per day across the basin. The proximity to the Sabine Pass and Calcasieu Pass LNG hubs simplifies logistics: the gas can be quickly converted into liquefied form and shipped to markets in Europe or Asia, where Adnoc already has long-term customer contracts. In the short term, it also protects the company from oil volatility by shifting part of the portfolio to gas, the demand for which is growing faster worldwide.”
Aethon: an asset strengthened by private equity
AethonEnergy, founded by investor Albert Huddleston in 1990, has been actively scaling up through private equity for the past decade: in 2015, RedBirdCapital joined the partners, and later the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which provided the company with stable access to cheap capital. Today, Aethon owns thousands of wells and its own midstream infrastructure, which reduces operating costs and increases its appeal to a strategic investor. If Adnoc closes the deal, it will be its first direct acquisition of upstream gas in the United States, reinforcing the UAE’s ambitions to become a global player not only in oil and gas processing but also in production.
Negotiations are still at an early stage, and market participants are closely watching to see if the recent volatility in energy prices will adjust the asset valuation. In any case, Abu Dhabi’s investment pace shows that the emirate is ready to convert its petrodollars into long-term gas and hydrogen projects overseas, strengthening the diversification of its energy portfolio and its own influence in global fuel markets.