OREANDA-NEWS. Abu Dhabi's crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan has ordered the merger of state-owned investment firms Mubadala and Ipic.

The consolidation will take place under the auspices of a joint committee headed by deputy prime minister Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, and will include the country's energy minister Suhail Mohamed Faraj al-Mazrouei.

Both Mubadala and Ipic have investments overseas, as part of a strategy to diversify assets and resources abroad. Ipic has shares in upstream, midstream and downstream companies including Austria's OMV, Spain's Cepsa, the Sumed pipeline company in Egypt, and Canada's Nova Chemicals. While Ipic operates primarily as a petroleum investment company, Mubadala functions in a much broader array of sectors including healthcare, technology, utilities, and aerospace. Leadership over the company's energy portfolio, which includes oversight of subsidiaries Mubadala Petroleum and renewable energy firm Masdar, was changed earlier this month.

Mubadala Petroleum has operations in the Mideast Gulf, southeast Asia, Kazakhstan, Tanzania and Libya and is the largest overseas UAE oil producer with 400,000 b/d. The company recently resolved to exit its joint venture at Bahrain's 50,000 b/d Awali field with Occidental Petroleum and Bahrain's Bapco.

Abu Dhabi's energy sector is in the middle of wide-scale transformation, as the country's leadership works to streamline its diverse group of companies. State-owned oil company Adnoc recently overhauled its management, appointing a new chief executive Sultan al-Jaber in February, and making appointments to several other executive posts throughout its subsidiary and operating companies in recent months.