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Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have signed a series of agreements to strengthen their energy cooperation.

National oil company Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has awarded Lukoil a 5% interest in the Ghasha sour gas concession, which includes the Hail, Ghasha, Dalma and other fields offshore Abu Dhabi, and which is expected to produce more than 1.5 bcf/d (42 mcm/d or 15.5 bcm/year) of gas and over 120 kb/d of oil and condensate.. Lukoil will invest AED 697m (US$190m) as a signing fee in the Ghasha project. Other partners in the project include Eni, Wintershall and OMV. Moreover, ADNOC also signed a framework agreement with Lukoil and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to explore future cooperation in the concession.

ADNOC has also signed a strategic framework agreement with Gazprom Neft to cooperate on upstream (exploration and production concessions, sour gas, enhanced oil recovery) downstream and new technologies. The agreement will extend Gazprom Neft’s cooperation projects with Emirati companies to activities in the Middle East, since the company had already set up a joint venture with Mubadala to develop fields in the Omsk and Tomsk regions of Russia.

Finally, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Rosatom to cooperate on nuclear energy. The scope of the MoU covers plant development and investment as well as nuclear fuel cycle management, among others.

The global investment firm Carlyle Group has closed the acquisition of a 37% stake in the Spanish oil and gas company Cepsa from Abu Dhabi state-owned holding Mubadala Investment Company (United Arab Emirates). Mubadala remains the majority shareholder in Cepsa, retaining a 63% interest.

EnBW has made a final investment decision (FID) on the construction of the 180 MW Weesow-Willmersdorf solar park near Werneuchen in Brandenburg (Germany) that will be developed without feed-in remuneration from the German Renewable Energies Act (EEG).

Progressing towards a final investment decision (FID), SSE Renewable has selected MHI Vestas to supply and service up to 114 wind turbines for its 1,075 MW Seagreen Offshore Wind Farm project, located off the coast of Fife in Scotland, UK. …

The government of Indonesia has approved a 27-year contract extension to Inpex and Shell to develop and operate the Abadi gas filed in the Masela block. The Masela Block Production Sharing Contract (PSC) amendment includes a 7-year additional time allocation and a 20-year extension for the Abadi LNG project. The PSC will now expire in November 2055. …

Indian state-owned hydropower company NHPC has resumed works on the 2,000 MW Lower Subansiri hydro power project in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh (India). The construction could last 3.5 years for a total expenditure of INR 170bn (US$2.4bn).

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran plans to start the construction of a second 1,000 MW reactor at its Bushehr nuclear power plant in November 2019. In 2014, Iran signed an agreement with Russia to build a second unit at Bushehr and the launch of the project was inaugurated the following year. The reactor could be built in six years (completion in late 2025).