In May 1984, a young ADNOC employee stepped into a lift at Abu Dhabi’s InterContinental Hotel, rode down two floors, and walked into a modest conference room where a few hundred petroleum engineers had gathered to share technical papers. It was quiet, purposeful, and small.
Today, that same event fills an entire exhibition city and draws heads of state, CEOs, and energy ministers who don’t wait to be asked twice. What ADIPEC has become — and how it got there — is a story four decades in the making.
A modest start at the InterContinental
ADIPEC launched on May 22–24, 1984, in the meeting rooms of Abu Dhabi’s InterContinental Hotel. The setting was deliberately contained — a focused gathering of petroleum engineers exchanging Society of Petroleum Engineers papers. Attendance likely topped out somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 people. According to Al Kindy, some organizers quietly worried the hotel venue might actually be too large. Those concerns didn’t last long.
For Al Kindy, then a young employee at ADCO (now ADNOC Onshore), the event carried real professional weight. He describes it as an “invaluable learning platform” — a space where an outside expert would present on a subject and, in doing so, break down the walls that typically separate organizations. Bringing external knowledge directly to local practitioners became the founding logic of everything that followed.
Decade by decade: from biennial niche event to annual global forum
For most of its early history, ADIPEC ran on a biennial schedule — respected within the industry, but not yet a global fixture. That changed gradually, then decisively in 2013, when the event shifted to an annual format, a signal that demand had simply outgrown a once-every-two-years rhythm.
The technical program reflects the same arc. Where the first ADIPEC featured papers on pneumatic valves, subject matter evolved in step with the industry: hydraulic systems, then digital technology, now artificial intelligence. The conference today receives more than 7,000 technical paper submissions per cycle — a figure that would have been unimaginable in those InterContinental meeting rooms.
The caliber of attendees shifted, too. Al Kindy describes receiving calls from CEOs of international oil companies and energy ministers who need no persuading. At other global conferences, senior figures might ask who else is attending before committing. At ADIPEC, the response is simpler: “Sure, I just want a seat.” The reason, he suggests, is that ADIPEC has become a platform where statements reach a genuinely global audience.
Expanding beyond oil and gas
The most significant broadening of ADIPEC’s identity came during the tenure of chairperson Tayba Abdulrahim Al Hashmi, who led the event from 2021 to 2024. That first post-COVID edition set a deliberate new direction, welcoming policymakers, government entities, and industries well outside the traditional energy sector. Engagement with technology enablers and research and development organizations grew substantially across this period.
The 2024 edition introduced ADIPEC’s first dedicated AI Zone, which Al Hashmi describes as a significant success — reflecting something larger: a fundamental reframing of what the conference is actually for.
As Al Hashmi, who also serves as CEO of ADNOC Offshore, puts it: “Today, ADIPEC isn’t just oil and gas.” The event now spans energy, manufacturing, health and safety, academia, and startups, with ministers sharing floor space alongside early-stage founders. The ambition, she says, is a conference with a place for everyone, shaping the future of energy — not only in the UAE, but globally.
ADIPEC 2025: scale, theme, and what comes next
The 2025 edition, scheduled for November 3–6 at ADNEC, is expected to host more than 200,000 attendees, 2,250 exhibiting companies, and 1,800 speakers drawn from 172 countries. Those numbers place it among the largest energy gatherings in the world by a considerable margin.
The theme — Energy. Intelligence. Impact. — frames the central challenge facing the industry: securing existing energy systems while simultaneously investing in lower-carbon solutions and AI-driven technologies that can accelerate progress. It reflects a tension the industry is actively navigating, not one that’s been neatly resolved.
Al Kindy, now approaching 50 years at ADNOC and serving as ADIPEC’s 2025 chairman, credits the cumulative work of generations of ADNOC leadership for building the event to where it stands. He’s candid that he couldn’t have predicted this trajectory back in 1984. Looking forward, he sees only one direction. “If I am to draw a slope,” he says, “I can only see incremental growth — and that means bigger numbers coming to ADIPEC.” For an event that started in a hotel meeting room with a few hundred engineers and a stack of technical papers, that slope has already proven steeper than anyone dared imagine.
