From Barrels to Molecules: Gulf’s Emerging Multi-energy Export Model
Rather than abandoning hydrocarbons, Gulf economies are building a layered export model that combines LNG, hydrogen, ammonia, clean electricity, and carbon solutions to shape the future architecture of global energy trade
For half a century, the Gulf’s geopolitical influence travelled in tankers of crude oil; today, it is beginning to move in cargoes of liquefied gas, molecules of hydrogen, clean-energy carriers, carbon management solutions, and electrons transmitted across borders. Rather than abandoning hydrocarbons, Gulf states are repositioning themselves as multi-energy exporters, seeking to convert resource endowments, sovereign capital, and strategic geography into long-term influence across the next generation of global energy trade.
This emerging export model rests on three enduring advantages. First, the Gulf combines vast hydrocarbon reserves with some of the world’s most competitive solar and wind resources, enabling parallel investment in both legacy and low-carbon energy systems. Second, sovereign wealth funds and state-owned energy companies provide patient capital capable of financing large-scale infrastructure, from LNG trains and nuclear plants to hydrogen hubs and carbon-capture networks. Third, the region’s geography, situated between Europe, Asia, and Africa, positions it as a natural corridor for energy trade. Together, these allow the Gulf not merely to adapt to the energy transition but to shape its emerging commercial architecture.
LNG: Enduring Baseline of Gulf Energy Exports
LNG remains the most mature and commercially secure pillar of the Gulf’s evolving export model, providing both continuity with the hydrocarbon era and the financial foundation for diversification into lower-carbon energy systems.
Competition from the United States and Australia, evolving climate policy, and the risk of demand plateauing beyond the 2030s mean that LNG is best understood not as the endpoint of Gulf export strategy, but as the stabilising bridge enabling the transition toward a broader multi-energy portfolio.
Qatar’s North Field expansion is expected to nearly double LNG production capacity from 77 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to about 142 mtpa by 2030, reinforcing its position among the world’s dominant gas exporters. In parallel, ADNOC’s Ruwais LNG project in the UAE will add about 9.6mtpa, with more than 80 percent of capacity already secured through long-term agreements ahead of its planned 2028 start-up. Designed as one of the region’s lowest-carbon LNG facilities, Ruwais will be powered by clean electricity and advanced digital optimisation.
Together with enduring long-term contracts with major Asian buyers, these developments underscore LNG’s continued role as the Gulf’s most bankable export channel even amid global decarbonisation pressures.
From a feasibility perspective, LNG differs from emerging clean-energy exports in one crucial respect: the infrastructure, shipping networks, and contractual frameworks are already established. This maturity allows Gulf producers to monetise existing gas reserves while financing investments in hydrogen, ammonia, and carbon management. Yet it also exposes LNG to long-term uncertainty. Competition from the United States and Australia, evolving climate policy, and the risk of demand plateauing beyond the 2030s mean that LNG is best understood not as the endpoint of Gulf export strategy, but as the stabilising bridge enabling the transition toward a broader multi-energy portfolio.
Hydrogen: Next Strategic Export Frontier
Hydrogen is being positioned to extend the Gulf’s energy influence into a decarbonising global system. Across the region, governments and state-backed developers are advancing large-scale projects that link abundant renewable resources, existing industrial infrastructure, and export-oriented energy strategy.
Saudi Arabia’s NEOM green hydrogen project is expected to produce around 600 tonnes per day of green hydrogen once operational, supported by more than 4 GW of dedicated solar and wind capacity. In the UAE, Masdar and ADNOC are advancing green and blue hydrogen initiatives tied to domestic industry and future export corridors, while Oman’s Hydrom framework and the Sur hydrogen cluster aim to position the country as a major exporter of green fuels to Europe and Asia.
Hydrogen is viewed as a long-term strategic extension of Gulf export capability, one that could reshape global energy trade if technological, financial, and geopolitical conditions align.
Despite this momentum, hydrogen exports remain structurally more uncertain than LNG. Large-scale deployment depends on falling electrolyser costs, reliable water supply through desalination, and bankable long-term offtake agreements in importing regions. Transport logistics, certification standards, and price competitiveness against alternative decarbonisation pathways will ultimately determine commercial viability. As a result, hydrogen is viewed as a long-term strategic extension of Gulf export capability, one that could reshape global energy trade if technological, financial, and geopolitical conditions align.
Ammonia: First Scalable Hydrogen Export
Ammonia is emerging as the most commercially viable pathway for exporting low-carbon hydrogen from the Gulf, enabling producers to utilise existing global shipping, storage, and industrial-use infrastructure while hydrogen markets mature. Several flagship Gulf projects are therefore structured around ammonia rather than direct hydrogen trade.
Saudi Arabia’s NEOM project is designed to produce roughly 1.2 mtpa of green ammonia, positioning the Kingdom among the earliest large-scale suppliers of hydrogen-derived fuels. It also successfully shipped 40 tonnes of blue ammonia to Japan, marking one of the world’s first cross-border trades in low-carbon ammonia and signalling early demand from Asian importers. In parallel, UAE-linked producer Fertiglobe has secured European offtake through Germany’s hydrogen-import tenders, while Oman is advancing integrated hydrogen-to-ammonia zones such as Hyport Duqm to anchor future clean-fuel exports.
Ammonia, unlike pure hydrogen, has existing transport logistics and end-use markets. Yet long-term competitiveness will depend on falling hydrogen production costs, large-scale renewable deployment, credible certification systems, and sustained import demand.
Ammonia, unlike pure hydrogen, has existing transport logistics and end-use markets. Yet long-term competitiveness will depend on falling hydrogen production costs, large-scale renewable deployment, credible certification systems, and sustained import demand. Ammonia could represent a bridge between Gulf hydrocarbons and a future clean-molecule export economy, shaped by global policy and market environment.
Regional Grid: Transmitting Clean Electrons
While still at a nascent stage, clean-power trade represents a potential long-term extension of the region’s energy-export model. The GCC Interconnection Grid already links national power systems, providing resilience, reserve sharing, and a foundation for future electricity trade. Historically used primarily for emergency balancing rather than commercial exchange, the same infrastructure could enable higher penetration of renewables and eventual cross-border clean-power flows as solar and wind capacity expands across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Oman.
Looking outward, several concepts under discussion envision high-voltage direct current (HVDC) connections transmitting renewable electricity from the Gulf toward neighbouring regions, including South Asia, North Africa, and potentially Europe.These proposals remain technically feasible but commercially complex, requiring multilateral coordination, long-distance subsea transmission, stable regulatory frameworks, and bankable long-term power-purchase agreements.
Compared with LNG or ammonia, direct electricity export faces higher geopolitical and infrastructure barriers, yet it also offers a compelling strategic logic. Where renewable generation costs are low, exporting electrons rather than fuels could ultimately provide a more efficient decarbonisation pathway for importing regions.
Carbon Management: A Low-Carbon Hedge
Carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) is emerging as a parallel export logic for the Gulf, sustaining the competitiveness of hydrocarbon value chains in a carbon-constrained world. Qatar’s large-scale capture facilities at Ras Laffan, the UAE’s operational Al Reyadah and upcoming Habshan project, and Saudi Arabia’s Jubail CCS Hub collectively signal a shift toward embedding carbon management within core export infrastructure.
Looking outward, several concepts under discussion envision high-voltage direct current (HVDC) connections transmitting renewable electricity from the Gulf toward neighbouring regions, including South Asia, North Africa, and potentially Europe.
CCUS builds directly on existing industrial systems, allowing Gulf producers to preserve hydrocarbon revenues while lowering lifecycle emissions. Yet its long-term viability depends on policy credibility beyond the region, robust carbon-pricing mechanisms, trusted monitoring and verification frameworks, and sustained demand for low-carbon fuels in Europe and Asia. If these conditions materialise, carbon management could evolve into a distinct export service, anchoring hydrogen, LNG, and industrial decarbonisation partnerships. In this sense, CCUS represents not a departure from the Gulf’s hydrocarbon foundations, but their strategic adaptation to the economics and geopolitics of deep decarbonisation.
Emerging Multi-Energy Order
Rather than replacing hydrocarbons, the region is layering new export vectors onto an existing foundation, using gas revenues, sovereign capital, and industrial infrastructure to finance entry into lower-carbon energy systems. This transition is therefore evolutionary rather than disruptive, defined by sequencing, scale, and strategic hedging rather than abrupt transformation.
Whether this emerging multi-energy model succeeds will depend on bankable offtake, water and land availability, grid and shipping infrastructure, and credible carbon-accounting frameworks, to determine which export pathways mature commercially. At the same time, geopolitical stability and sustained demand from Europe and Asia remain preconditions for long-term influence.
If realised, the Gulf’s shift from exporting barrels of crude to exporting molecules, electrons, and carbon solutions could reshape the architecture of global energy trade. The question is not whether the Gulf will remain central to the energy system, but how that centrality will be redefined in a decarbonising world.
Parul Bakshi is Fellow – Energy and Climate at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) Middle East.