His Excellency Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and Group CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), met, today, with Vasilica Dăncilă, Romania’s first female Prime Minister, at ADNOC, in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
During the meeting, H.E. Dr. Al Jaber conveyed the greetings of the UAE leadership to the Romanian leadership and government, emphasizing the UAE’s keenness to boost bilateral ties. H.E. Dr. Al Jaber stressed the need for both parties to take advantage of the opportunities to enhance bilateral trade.
Accompanied by H.E. Dr. Al Jaber, Prime Minister Dăncilă attended a demonstration of ADNOC’s advanced Panorama Digital Command Center, which is using artificial intelligence and big data to drive operational efficiencies and performance by giving real-time visibility to information from ADNOC’s full value chain.
Prime Minister Dăncilă also visited ADNOC’s Thamama Subsurface Collaboration Center, which is using smart analytics and is adopting artificial intelligence platforms to solve subsurface challenges, help unlock more challenging resources and optimize field development plans, as well as reduce drilling time and manage production capacity across ADNOC’s operations.
Later, H.E. Dr. Al Jaber hosted a lunch for Prime Minister Dăncilă, which was also attended by the UAE’s Ambassador to Romania, Ahmed Abdullah Saeed, and Romania’s Ambassador to the UAE, Adrian Macelaru. During the visit, Prime Minister Dăncilă also met with members of ADNOC’s Future Leaders Program, which is designed to identify the company’s best and brightest Emirati employees and provide them with the knowledge, skills and experience they will need to ensure ADNOC continues to thrive in the future energy landscape.
Prime Minister Dăncilă became Romania’s first female Prime Minister on January 28, 2018. Before entering politics, she was an engineer for Petrom SA, the Romanian National Oil Company. During her visit to ADNOC, she expressed her admiration for how ADNOC is harnessing the enabling power of digitalization and adopting an innovative partnership approach to drive growth.
Diplomatic relations between the UAE and Romania were formally established in 1989. Romania opened its embassy in Abu Dhabi in 1991, and the UAE Embassy opened its doors in Bucharest in 2004. In April, the UAE-Romania Joint Committee held its first ministerial meeting in the Romanian capital, Bucharest. The meeting was chaired by H.E. Dr. Al Jaber.
Bilateral non-oil trade between the UAE and Romania amounted to $573.8 million in 2016. UAE cumulative investment in Romania from 2003-2017 amounted to US $103 million. Austria’s OMV, which owns 51% of PETROM, is part-owned by a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company. OMV has a 20% stake in ADNOC’s SARB and Umm Lulu offshore concession area.
