Impacts on workers’ rights The Emirati oil and gas industry is highly dependent on a low-paid migrant workforce from South-Asian countries. Migrant workers in the oil and gas sector in the UAE, primarily for ADNOC, are working in risky conditions. They are forced to work strenuously long shifts in dangerous temperature and humidity levels. There is also a lack of transparency around working conditions and deaths of workers. Work-related deaths are often labelled as being due to ‘natural causes’. 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, ADNOC let go of thousands of its employees. They were forced to choose between being fired or signing a letter of resignation, with the promise of larger final settlements for whoever chooses to resign. Workers were then given a pre-drafted resignation letter to sign, which they often did not understand as it was not translated or explained to them. A 2022 report by NGO Equidem found that hundreds of migrant workers, then relocated to their home countries, were still owed their last wages and the promised settlement.

Impacts on livelihoods ADNOC holds a 25% stake in the Ratnagiri Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (RRPCL) project in the Maharashtra region of India. The refinery is expected to be the world’s largest single-location refinery complex and, once operational, it will process 1.2 million barrels of crude oil per day. 

The project is set to displace the inhabitants of 17 villages located on the 5,261 hectares of land, mostly mango farmers or fisherfolk who depend on their lands and the coast for their livelihoods. The refinery has sparked opposition among local communities because of concerns about its impact on their livelihoods. Residents fear potential oil spills and contaminated waste water discharges could pollute the lands and sea and cause unemployment and economic loss. 

Impacts on water resources The area where the RRPCL is to be located is a vast laterite plateau that, due to its porous rock formations, is characterised by underground aquifers. These underground water basins are the main source of drinking water for the many villages at the base of the plateau. The refinery could impact the groundwater supply, as it would hinder the natural process that recharges underground aquifers with rainwater percolating through the porous rocks, with the additional risk that toxic waste from the refinery may seep into the underground aquifers.

Impacts on historical sites The communities impacted by the RRPCL project also claim that it will threaten over 1,000 prehistoric geoglyphs (large carvings of animals and human figures into rock formations) that hold historical and cultural significance. In April 2022, these ancient sites were added to a tentative list of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites. Discovered across the region since 2015, some of these 20,000-year-old artworks measure over 30 feet tall and they attract thousands of tourists from around the world, another source of income for the local villages.

Violence against community resistance In February 2023, Sashikant Warishe, a journalist who focused his work on the residents’ resistance to the RRPCL project and the irregularities in the land acquisition process, was deliberately hit by an SUV and killed. The driver was a local land broker that was known to threaten and harass citizens resisting the acquisition of land for the refinery’s development. Mr Warishe had published an article about his killer the same day.

On April 25th 2023, also at the site of the RRPCL project, over 700 protesters were arrested by police and 111 were detained and charged with rioting, unlawful assembly and disobedience to public order. On April 28th, Vinayak Raut, member of the Indian Parliament and representative for the Ratnagiri area, was also arrested after he blocked a local road by initiating a sit-in. This triggered further protests at the site. The police responded to these protests by firing tear gas canisters at the protesters.

Since April 2023, the government has deployed an unprecedented amount of police personnel in Barsu Solgaon, Block Rajapur, and the Ratnagiri District to conduct soil testing and other tests for the project, creating an atmosphere of control and oppression among the local communities.

Expansion of oil & LNG operations In 2022, ADNOC produced 2.7 million barrels of oil per day, and its goal is to increase production to five million barrels per day by 2027. While Sultan al-Jaber, in his recent PR events as appointed president of COP28, has more than once stated that the world must rapidly reduce emissions and that the United Arab Emirates is not afraid of working for the energy transition, his company is developing and evaluating expansions in extraction sites across the UAE equivalent to 7.5 billion barrels of oil. 89.8% of the planned expansion would overshoot the limits of the Net-Zero Emissions by 2050 pathway set by the International Energy Agency (IEA). According to Energy Monitor, ADNOC is one of the 25 oil companies that alone, thanks to their expansion plans, are set to “blow the world’s 1.5°C carbon budget.” 

In addition, ADNOC has recently established a new gas and LNG subsidiary, ADNOC Gas.The company plans to double its LNG production, from 6 to 12 million tons annually by the end of 2026. Its plans include a second LNG terminal in Fujairah in the UAE; and two new LNG carriers with a capacity of 175,000 cubic metres each, to add to its already existing fleet of eight LNG carriers.

In October 2023, ADNOC awarded contracts for the Hail and Ghasha offshore gas and oil fields. The project is expected to become operational by 2030, producing more than 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day.The so-called ‘Ghasha Mega-Project’ will be the world’s largest offshore sour gas development, with a natural gas reserve of 5 trillion standard cubic feet and an additional reserve of more than 1.1 billion barrels of oil.

Expansion of unconventional gas extraction ADNOC’s gas operations include ‘unconventional gas’ extraction through fracking. Fracking is a harmful method of extraction of gas and oil, performed by injecting high pressure water and chemicals into the ground, resulting in a highly water-intensive and polluting process. ADNOC is planning to expand fracking operations further, primarily in the Ruwais Diyab gas field, through collaboration with TotalEnergies. ADNOC is planning to extract 1 billion standard cubic feet of unconventional gas from this concession alone.

Methane emissions The UAE should report on its greenhouse gases emissions every two years as a Non-Annex I party to the UNFCCC. However, according to the Greenhouse Gas Inventory Database, it has not done so since 2014. 

ADNOC has set itself the goal of limiting methane leaks throughout upstream production to less than 0.15% of the total gas produced. However the target is higher than ADNOC’s actual reported methane emissions for 2022, which are about 0.07%. The target would allow ADNOC to more than double its methane emissions.

ADNOC has committed to achieve net zero methane emissions (Scope 1 and 2) by 2030. However, it plans to reach such a target mostly through methane abatement projects, which extract methane from the atmosphere and release water vapour and CO2 instead; simply switching one greenhouse gas for another.

Greenwashing and false solutions Ahead of the COP28 summit, ADNOC is going through major rebranding, taking on a PR campaign to clean the name of COP chairman al-Jaber. This campaign included amending and ‘greenwashing’ al-Jaber’s Wikipedia entry and creating hundreds of fake social media accounts celebrating his al-Jaber’s appointment and UAE environmental policies. In addition, the company is marketing itself as a provider of low-carbon energy and it even considered dropping the word ‘oil’ from the company’s name.  

In his role as appointed chairman for COP28, Sultan al-Jaber has often made remarks that are at odds with his role as CEO of ADNOC. The UAE paints al-Jaber as an example among its oil executive peers and as the minister who has made the UAE the first MENA country to pledge net zero carbon emissions by 2050. On the other hand, Sultan al-Jaber has been promoting the need for countries to commit to phase out fossil fuel emissions during the COP negotiations, as opposed to phasing out fossil fuels extraction and use, which is what is needed to limit global warming to 1.5 ℃.

ADNOC has set a target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2045, but relies heavily on carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects to achieve this goal. With current plans it would capture 4 million tons of CO2 annually. However, its Scope 1 and 2 emissions alone amount to 24 million tons of CO2 in 2022. CSS and methane abatement technologies are generally considered as neither a technically nor an economically feasible solution to climate change and decarbonisation, while diverting billions of dollars in investments from more efficient and effective solutions.

RRPCL projects impacts on biodiversity The Ratnagiri Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (RRPCL) project is set to be developed on land that the local government has claimed is barren. This claim is strongly opposed by locals, who instead assert the area’s rich biodiversity, which allows thousands of people to rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. Their claim is supported by UNESCO, which recognises the entire Western Ghats region as one of the world’s eight ‘hottest hotspots’ of biological diversity. According to UNESCO, at least 325 globally threatened flora and fauna species can be found in the region, of which 129 are classified as vulnerable, 145 as endangered and 51 as critically endangered. Endangered species like the lion-tailed macaque, the Nilgiri tahr, and the Nilgiri langur are unique to this area. 

Hail and Ghasha offshore oil and gas fields impacts on Marawah Biosphere Reserve The Hail and Ghasha offshore oil and gas fields lie within the boundaries of the Marawah Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Marawah Marine Protected Area is the largest marine reserve in the Persian Gulf. It protects a variety of habitats, including seagrass, mangrove forests, and heat-resistant coral reefs, all habitats with a global ecological significance. It also represents an important feeding ground for several animal species, such as the dugong, the hawksbill sea turtle and the green sea turtle. Expansion of the operations in the fields poses several risks for the species living in the area. Firstly, pollution caused by leaks during the extraction of oil and gas poses a major threat to the marine environment; secondly, the dredging and building of artificial islands, connected with the extraction operations, threaten the seagrass habitats, and, indirectly, the dugongs and sea turtles who find shelter and feed in such habitat.

Impacts on COP28 reputation ADNOC CEO Al-Jaber was called upon by several environmental organisations to either step down from his chairmanship of COP28 or from his role as CEO. In May 2023, more than 130 US and European lawmakers sent a letter to President Biden, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, calling  for the withdrawal of al-Jaber’s appointment. The decision to keep al-Jaber as the COP chair is still intensely criticised by campaigners and activists from all around the world and deemed as ‘the corporate capture of COPs’. Activists are calling the UN summit a mockery. The decision to appoint al-Jaber as chair falls into a trend that had seen 636 fossil lobbyists being granted access to COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh in November 2022, 22 of which were affiliated with ADNOC.