Building the capability behind the UAE’s next phase of energy growth
The UAE is entering another major phase of energy and industrial development, with significant investment planned across the energy value chain, including AED200 billion in new project awards announced for 2026 to 2028.
Through Make it in the Emirates and the National In-Country Value programme, local manufacturing, stronger domestic supply chains and skilled employment are increasingly factored into how major projects are awarded.
Lamprell’s leadership participated in Make it in the Emirates 2026 in Abu Dhabi and attended the ADNOC Strategic Projects Majlis, hosted by HE Dr Sultan Al Jaber and ADNOC executive management. The session offered insight into ADNOC’s future investment pipeline across upstream, downstream, offshore and onshore sectors, alongside a focus on closer collaboration with the EPC community.
As a long-standing partner to ADNOC, Lamprell sees strong opportunities to support this growth, including through the expansion of its Onshore EPC division and continued investment in its regional capabilities.
The UAE’s emphasis on local content is helping strengthen the industrial capability and resilience needed to support long-term growth. With 50 years of operating history in the UAE, Lamprell’s established facilities, relationships and delivery capability position the business to contribute to that ambition.
Local capability that reduces risk
Our Hamriyah and Jebel Ali facilities provide established engineering, procurement, fabrication and project execution capability close to the region’s major energy developments. Engineering and fabrication teams can work more closely together, clients have direct access to project and operational teams, and critical interfaces can be managed locally, helping reduce execution risk across cost, schedule and delivery.
That proximity is increasingly valuable in a more complex regional environment. Disrupted shipping routes and greater uncertainty across international supply chains reinforce the importance of having critical capability, suppliers and execution capacity already established in-country.
Strategic international sourcing remains important, but Lamprell’s established domestic network allows us to combine specialist global technology with the capacity, responsiveness and resilience of a strong UAE supply base. This provides greater visibility, supports contingency planning and gives teams the flexibility to adapt quickly as risks emerge, helping protect project execution and strengthen resilience.
In September, Lamprell secured a major offshore EPCI project in the UAE in consortium with Larsen & Toubro, with responsibility for the subsea pipeline EPCI scope. The award builds on five decades of project delivery in the UAE and draws on Lamprell’s established local engineering, procurement, fabrication and execution capability to support another complex offshore development.
From local content to industrial resilience
In 2025, 86% of Lamprell’s suppliers were based in the UAE, supported by strategic global sourcing where specialist technology or capability is required. Shorter delivery distances, established supplier relationships and local-market knowledge provide greater flexibility when conditions change.
Automated inventory processes provide end-to-end material traceability, while supplier performance is assessed across quality, HSES, labour practices, sourcing ethics and environmental criteria.
The strategic question for clients is therefore broader than who can supply the work. It is who can anticipate supply constraints, qualify alternatives, reduce external dependencies and maintain safe, predictable execution as operating conditions change.
Fifty years of knowledge behind every project
Lamprell has worked alongside the UAE’s energy industry since 1976. Over five decades, those relationships have created deep knowledge of the operating environment, client expectations, regulatory requirements and the standards required for safe execution.
That track record includes a nine-rig new-build programme delivered between 2010 and 2017 for ADNOC Drilling, with many of those rigs subsequently returning to Lamprell for refurbishment, upgrades and life-extension work. It is a good example of how individual projects have developed into long-term asset support and enduring client relationships.
As the UAE accelerates its next generation of energy investment, the opportunity is to build locally, safely, efficiently and resiliently, while strengthening the industrial capability that will support the country for decades to come.
That is where Made in the UAE, for the UAE has real meaning – and where Lamprell’s 50 years of investment in local capability underpins what comes next.