The pale light of dawn stirred the Habshan oil field. The horizon shimmered with heat before the sun rose. The engines rumbled, and the men in faded overalls moved through the dust with quiet purpose.

Among them was a 22-year-old mechanic, my father, Faraj Salem Almazrouei, starting his first month-long shift for the National Drilling Company in 1977.

He was to keep the heart of the rig alive. Every bolt and motor weighed in its own importance. To him, the desert was workspace and world alike: unforgiving, endless and promising. Every day began with a wrench in hand and ended beneath a star-filled sky.

That same year, deep in the sands of Abu Dhabi, another story was unfolding, not of one man but of a nation rising on the power of oil.

CAPTION: Sultan Faraj Almazrouei

Before oil, the UAE was a land of small coastal towns. Life followed the sea: fishing, pearl diving and trade. The desert was more obstacle than opportunity. Then came the late 1950s, when drills went down and black gold came up.

It was in 1962 that the first shipment of crude left Abu Dhabi, marking a turn of history. By 1977, when my father joined, the country was being transformed: Roads reached the dunes, ports expanded and new schools were opening in towns that had not existed 10 years earlier.

He called it “living inside a miracle.” Every year brought something new: a road, a camp, a skyline.

Work on an oil rig was not for the faint-hearted. The schedule was relentless – one month on, one month off, a rhythm that shaped his life for two decades. During work months he lived between Habshan and Asab, two of Abu Dhabi’s busiest fields.

Days commenced well before sunrise. Before mid morning, the temperatures were above 45°C, with heat radiating from the metal rigs. For most of each day, the mechanics, engineers and drillers stood shoulder-to-shoulder, shouting over the roar of machines.

Day and night, the rigs ran even when teams knew one loose bolt could stop production.

There was pride in that suffering, however. The crew turned into a family: Emiratis, Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, bound by the same goal. They all worked and ate and slept under the same stars. My father said that when the engines at last fell silent, “You could hear the desert breathe.”

Beneath those towers lay a hidden world. Wells stretched thousands of meters underground, three to four times the Burj Khalifa’s height. Layers of steel casing prevented collapse, each welded and sealed with precision.

My father’s team maintained the engines that rotated the drill, pumped mud to cool the drill bit and kept pressure steady. “The rig was alive,” he said. “You could feel its heartbeat in the ground.”

In the 1970s, most work was manual. Measurements were taken by hand, and repairs meant improvising with limited tools in extreme heat. Today most of those processes are automated, but back then progress was mainly powered by people.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the UAE emerged as a global player in the energy front. State-owned ADNOC and its group companies, including NDC (now called ADNOC Drilling), produced around 3 million barrels per day, with export markets including Japan, China, and India as major destinations.

Oil wealth reshaped the nation: highways, airports, hospitals, and universities rose across the country. When my father began, drilling camps were simple. By the time he retired in 2000, paved roads and electricity reached the remotest rigs, together with satellite phones. “We watched the country grow with our own eyes,” he said proudly.

Yet, even with that machinery, it was people who created the oil industry. My father related to his co-workers not as workers but as family. They celebrated birthdays with shared meals and helped each other through the long, hot days.

Every man had a reason for being there: the technician saving for his daughters, the engineer far from home. Yet all shared one belief. “Every drop we pumped out,” my father said, “meant something was being built somewhere: a hospital, a road, a home.”

Today, the UAE stands as one of the most developed economies in the world, known for its skyscrapers, sustainability, and innovation.

Under these towers is a story of men such as my father, whose work built the foundation for it all.

Oil wealth funded schools and research but also opened the path toward renewable energy.

The same drive that powered the drills now powers the UAE’s quest for solar and hydrogen power. The country has learned not just to use energy, but to transform it.

My father’s hands still show the signs of years with engines and oil, though he is retired now. Sometimes, if we are driving past the Abu Dhabi skyline, he says, “When I started, there was nothing here but sand.” His is one of the thousands of stories, but it epitomizes the UAE’s journey.

The discovery of oil didn’t just bring wealth, it built resilience and ambition. The men who toiled under the scorching desert sun little knew that one day their work would light the cities of the future. The hum of those old machines still seems to echo beneath the sand today, a steady rhythm, the heartbeat of a country risen from grit and steel.

Sultan Faraj Almazrouei is a chemical engineering student at Khalifa University

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