ADNOC Issues Seventh Crude Tender Since June as Hormuz Blockade Passes Eleven Weeks
Abu Dhabi keeps selling oil through a crisis that has already wiped more than one billion barrels of global supply.
ADNOC issued its seventh crude tender since the start of June on Thursday (2026-08-06), offering barrels for delivery between August and October from both within and outside the Strait of Hormuz, according to Rigzone. The move signals that Abu Dhabi has sustained commercial operations through more than eleven weeks of a blockade that has throttled Gulf export routes and sent energy prices soaring.7,6
ICE Brent crude front-month was trading at $79.88 per barrel as of 09:04 UTC on Thursday (2026-08-06), up 0.26% on the session, while Dubai crude sat at $75.64 per barrel. JKM, the Asian LNG benchmark most directly exposed to Gulf disruption, stood at $20.91 per MMBtu. The blockade has not simply lifted prices — it has reshuffled who can move barrels and on what terms, and ADNOC is positioning itself as one of the few sellers still able to deliver.7
The scale of what Hormuz's closure has removed from the market is stark. ADNOC chief executive Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said in late May (2026-05-20) that more than one billion barrels of oil had been lost since the strait shut, with nearly 100 million additional barrels lost for every week the blockade continues. Before the conflict, the strait carried roughly 20% of the world's oil and seaborne gas, according to The Guardian. At that rate, the cumulative supply hit already surpasses the output of several mid-sized OPEC producers for an entire year.2,3
ADNOC has leaned on an existing pipeline running west to east across the UAE to reroute exports to the port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, bypassing Hormuz entirely. That pipeline carries a maximum capacity of 1.8 million barrels per day, according to CNBC. How much of that capacity is currently in use, and whether ADNOC is running close to its ceiling, has not been disclosed publicly.3,7
A second pipeline is under construction and stood at roughly 50% completion as of mid-May (2026-05-20), when Al Jaber made the announcement at an industry event. Once finished, the UAE plans to double its crude export capacity bypassing Hormuz, Reuters reported, targeting completion by 2027. The project was accelerated after the crisis intensified.3,45
But Al Jaber was direct about the timeline risk even in a best-case scenario. Even if hostilities ended immediately, he said, it would take at least four months to ramp oil flows back to 80% of normal levels. Supply chains take time to rebuild: tankers repositioned, field operations resumed, pipeline throughput restored. That four-month lag should concern buyers counting on a swift recovery in Gulf barrels once a ceasefire holds.3
The UAE's position in this crisis is not straightforward. It is simultaneously one of the countries most exposed to Hormuz risk and one of the few with the infrastructure to partially circumvent it. Al Jaber used the occasion of a US-Iran ceasefire in late May (2026-05-21) to criticise what he called Iran's continued grip on Hormuz passage, saying the restrictions "set a dangerous precedent," Montel reported. The ceasefire had been in place for two weeks at that point, yet shipping restrictions remained.1
Fujairah's role as the exit point for bypass barrels gives the UAE a geographic edge no other Gulf producer can replicate at this scale. Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait lack equivalent overland pipeline capacity to the Arabian Sea. That structural reality has allowed ADNOC to keep tendering while its neighbours face steeper logistical constraints — though the packet contains no data on what competitors' export volumes have done since June.7,5
The picture for Asian buyers is particularly acute. JKM at $20.91 per MMBtu on Thursday (2026-08-06) reflects a market still pricing in supply tightness, with Gulf LNG routes disrupted alongside crude. Countries including Japan, South Korea and India that depend on Gulf cargoes face the longest re-routing costs if Hormuz stays closed.7
ICE Brent at $79.88 per barrel on Thursday (2026-08-06) is not the price one might expect given a blockade removing 100 million barrels per week from the market. Whether demand weakness, inventory draws in consuming regions, or accelerated non-Gulf supply are offsetting the disruption is not clear from the available data — but the gap between the scale of the supply hit and where ICE Brent front-month is trading is the number worth watching as the blockade extends into its twelfth week.6,27