17
COVER STORY
oilandgasmiddleeast.com AUGUST 2019
The company made a breakthrough as
the first company to obtain an Environ-
mental Product Declaration (EPD) for
its LAB products. As part of our commit-
ment to support the advancement of Abu
Dhabi’s downstream sector, Cepsa has
been selected as the ideal partner to es-
tablish a LAB manufacturing facility here
in the UAE, as part of the wider refining
complex in Ruwais, and is expected to
have a production capacity of 150,
tonnes per year of LAB upon completion.
Our portfolio companies NOVA
Chemicals, Borealis, OMV and Borouge,
are proactively addressing the increasing
challenges to the use and poor disposal
of single-use plastic products. Borealis
is emerging as a strong leader in imple-
menting a circular economy strategy with
the signing of an agreement with OMV to
utilise recycled plastic waste as feedstock
in its polyolefin plant and with the launch
of Borcyle™, a new technology producing
high quality compounds with up to 80%
recycled content (targeting appliances
manufacturing).
When it comes to talent, we look to
attract youth into the energy industry and
retain them through various initiatives
and opportunities. We are particularly
focused on nurturing our future energy
leaders through a programme that has
been developed to support the career
journey of youth within the petroleum
and petrochemicals platform of Mubada-
la Investment Company.
The Future Energy Leaders pro-
gramme’s mission is to advance talent,
boost the local workforce, and equip
young with crucial business and indus-
trial skills for upward career progression.
Ultimately, the FEL programme looks
at enabling to become a driving force of
the UAE’s economic development. The
programme provides participants with
the opportunity to learn and understand
industry operations, gain local market
experience, get exposure to new inter-
national business cultures and have the
opportunity to build a global network.
It is built on a personalised basis
catering to participants’ most pressing
needs, and helpign to upgrade their core
job skills to ensure maximum positive
impact and value-added contribution to
Mubadala as an organisation, the energy
industry and ultimately the government
of Abu Dhabi.
Where do you see the most opportunity
for growth, going forward?
Mubadala is committed to make social-
ly sustainable and commercially robust
investments that will generate significant
and sustainable financial returns to our
shareholder, the government of Abu
Dhabi. The petroleum & petrochemicals
strategy in simple: we aim to maximise
long-term value while effectively manag-
ing risks and creating resilience at a
broad range of commodity prices.
This strategy plays out through our
portfolio that is geographically diverse
and integrated across the oil and gas
value-chain. Drilling down into each ofthe three sectors of the value-chain; in
upstream our main focus is on material
investments in gas development and
production with a secondary focus on
low-cost, opportunistic oil plays, in mid-
stream we look at investments in energy
infrastructure, such as gas pipelines, that
provide low-risk, predictable income
stream largely insulated from commodity
price risk, in downstream, our focus re-
mains on projects that target growing or
premium markets for refined or chemi-
cal products, leveraging the proprietary
technologies and operating expertise of
our portfolio companies and access to
competitively priced feedstock.
This strategy is aligned with the priori-
ties of Mubadala and of our shareholder.
It is specifically aimed at supporting Abu
Dhabi’s global ambitions and hydrocar-
bon diversification strategy while gener-
ating superior financial returns.“CERTAIN INDUSTRY EXPERTS REFER TO THE
INTRODUCTION AND GROWTH OF ELECTRIC
VEHICLES AS A THREAT... FOR US THE FUTURE
EXPANSION OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES PRESENTS
AN INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY.”