Abu Dhabi’s skyline shimmered in the early November sun as the international oil industry’s power players gathered for the annual Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference. The timing was anything but ordinary. Just hours earlier, OPEC+—the alliance of oil-producing nations led by Saudi Arabia and Russia—had made a surprise move: pausing the production increases it had scheduled for the first quarter of 2026. The decision sent ripples across the global energy market, and the summit’s opening session quickly became a stage for bold pronouncements, geopolitical posturing, and candid debate about the future of oil in a world grappling with climate change and technological disruption.
Optimism was in the air, at least among the summit’s hosts. According to the Associated Press, officials in Abu Dhabi expressed bullish confidence that surging demand for energy—driven by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and the rebound of global aviation—would support higher oil prices in the coming years. Sultan al-Jaber, the influential head of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. and the leader of last year’s COP28 climate summit, set the tone with a simple but pointed declaration: the energy market, he said, needs “reinforcement, not replacement.”
It was a message that resonated with U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who took the stage soon after. Burgum, a former North Dakota governor and a key figure in President Donald Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, applauded al-Jaber’s remarks and wasted no time criticizing what he called “a set of policies that have been driven by an ideology around climate extremism.” He argued, “The demand for power is going to go up and up and up. Today’s the day to announce that there is no energy transition. There is only energy addition.”
For Burgum and others at the summit, the world’s appetite for energy is only growing. He outlined two central pillars of current U.S. energy policy: preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and ensuring that the “free world cannot lose the AI arms race.” Both, he said, require robust supplies of electricity and, by extension, fossil fuels. “You need chips, you need software models and you need more electricity,” Burgum declared, according to the AP.
The optimism on display in Abu Dhabi stood in stark contrast to recent price trends. On Monday, November 3, benchmark Brent crude was trading at around $65 a barrel—down sharply from its post-pandemic high of $115 after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and even below the $60 mark seen in the days leading up to the summit, as reported by multiple outlets. The culprit? Fears of oversupply, as oil continued to flow despite softening global demand. Yet OPEC+’s latest move—announcing a modest production increase of 137,000 barrels per day for December 2025, while pausing further hikes in January, February, and March 2026 due to “seasonality”—was widely interpreted as a strategic effort to stabilize prices and buy time.
“Yes, OPEC+ is blinking, but it’s a calculated move,” Jorge León, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, told the AP. “Sanctions on Russian producers have injected a new layer of uncertainty into supply forecasts, and the group knows that overproducing now could backfire later. By pausing, OPEC+ is protecting prices, projecting unity and buying time to see how sanctions play out on Russian barrels.”
Not everyone shared concerns about oversupply. Suhail al-Mazerouei, the United Arab Emirates’ energy and infrastructure minister, dismissed such talk outright. “I’m not going to talk about an oversupply scenario,” he said. “I can’t see that. I can’t justify that. And I think all of what we are seeing is more demand.”
The summit’s geopolitical subtext was impossible to ignore. The United States and United Kingdom had just imposed new sanctions on Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil, targeting revenue streams that help fund Moscow’s war in Ukraine. The red-and-white Lukoil logo loomed over the conference stage as Burgum took a pointed swipe: “The Russian and Ukraine war is being funded by energy sales,” he said, highlighting the complex interplay between energy markets and international conflict. Despite these tensions, the UAE has maintained close ties with Russia, serving as a key intermediary in prisoner exchanges between Kyiv and Moscow.
Meanwhile, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States—a perennial political flashpoint—stood at $3.03 as the summit opened, according to the AP. Former President Trump, who has a history of criticizing OPEC+ and Saudi Arabia over oil prices, loomed large in the background of these discussions, as the U.S. heads into another contentious election year.
Climate change, while not absent from the summit, often took a backseat to immediate market concerns. The UAE’s role as both a major oil producer and the host of COP28 in 2023 underscored the contradictions at play. Last year’s climate talks ended with nearly 200 countries pledging, for the first time, to move away from planet-warming fossil fuels. Scientists have warned that global emissions must be cut nearly in half in the coming years to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Yet the UAE continues to pursue ambitious plans to raise its oil production capacity to 5 million barrels per day, even as it invests in clean energy at home.
The summit also saw a sharp warning from Qatari Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, who cautioned the European Union that Qatar could halt shipments of liquefied natural gas—a lifeline for Europe since Russian LNG was banned—if Brussels pushes ahead with its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. The directive aims to make companies pursue net-zero emission goals, a policy al-Kaabi criticized as being out of step with real-world energy needs. “I think, you know, a small part of this conference, unfortunately, changes with politics depending on when it was President Biden and President Trump and so on,” he said. “I think that they’re not looking at facts and realities and I think we shouldn’t be following politics when we look at the lives of people for the future and how much energy we need in the future.”
The summit’s debates reflected the deep divisions shaping global energy policy. On one side, industry leaders and allied officials insisted that fossil fuels remain indispensable, especially as new technologies and a growing global population drive up demand. On the other, climate advocates and some governments point to the mounting evidence of climate change and the urgent need for a rapid transition to cleaner energy sources. The UAE, Qatar, and their partners find themselves at the center of this tug-of-war, balancing economic interests, international relations, and environmental responsibilities.
As the conference drew to a close, one thing was clear: the world’s energy future remains as contested—and as consequential—as ever. The decisions made in Abu Dhabi this week will echo far beyond the Gulf, shaping markets, politics, and the climate for years to come.
