ABU DHABI —
The UAE agreed Sunday an “energy security” deal with Germany to supply
liquefied natural gas (LNG) and diesel as Berlin searches for new power sources
to replace Russian supplies.
اضافة اعلان
Emirati Industry
Minister Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber called it a “landmark new agreement” that
“reinforces the rapidly growing energy partnership between the UAE and
Germany”, at a signing attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the UAE’s
state news agency WAM reported.
Scholz was on a
visit to the UAE as part of a Gulf tour that also includes stops in Saudi Arabia
and Qatar.
He met with Emirati
President Sheikh
Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, who said on Twitter afterwards
they had discussed “further opportunities for cooperation in areas including
energy security, emissions reduction and climate action”.
The German leader
said he “welcomed” the “energy security” agreement, WAM said.
As part of the
deal, the UAE will provide “an LNG cargo for delivery in late 2022, to be used
in the commissioning of Germany’s floating LNG import terminal at
Brunsbuettel”, a North Sea port, the WAM report added.
UAE state oil
company ADNOC completed its first ever direct diesel delivery to Germany
earlier this month and will “supply up to 250,000 tons of diesel per month in
2023”, it said.
“ADNOC has reserved
a number of further LNG cargos exclusively for German customers in 2023,” it
said.
Sunday was the
second and final day of Scholz’s Gulf tour, which he hoped would seal new
energy deals to replace Russian supplies and mitigate the energy crisis
resulting from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
On Saturday, he met
in Jeddah with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and on Sunday afternoon
he arrived in gas-rich Qatar to hold talks with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad
Al-Thani.
Energy transition
Scholz’s stop in the UAE included a tour of an environmental project at a
mangrove park with Emirati Climate Change Minister Mariam Almheiri.
Almheiri said
discussions on Sunday would, in addition to energy security, cover “climate
action and economic growth”.
“The UAE believes
all three pillars must go hand and hand. We cannot look at one or two of these
pillars separately,” she said.
She also reiterated
Abu Dhabi’s insistence on “a just transition” away from fossil fuels.
Both the UAE and
Saudi Arabia have been leading critics of what they describe as “unrealistic”
transition models they say have contributed to the current energy crunch.
Scholz told
reporters in Abu Dhabi that his country had “made progress on a whole series of
projects here in terms of the production and purchase of diesel and gas”, while
adding it was determined to avoid energy dependence on Russia in the future.
“The fact that we
are dependent on one supplier and also dependent on its decisions will
certainly not happen to us again,” he said.
“With the
investments that we are now making in Germany, and that will become reality bit
by bit next year, we will indeed have an infrastructure for gas imports for
Germany, such that we are no longer directly dependent on the specific supplier
at the other end of the pipeline, as we are with a pipeline connection.”
His visit to Qatar
comes one day after France’s
TotalEnergies signed a new $1.5 billion deal to
help expand Doha’s natural gas production.
Scholz said such
projects were “important”.
“We have to ensure
that the production of liquefied gas in the world is advanced to such an extent
that the high demand that exists can be met — without having to fall back on
the production capacities in Russia that have been used so far,” he said.
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