Inpex Corp. of Japan joined Total SA in developing the main onshore oil deposits in the United Arab Emirates as Abu Dhabi calls on new partners for its $22 billion effort to pump crude from its largest fields.

Japan’s state-backed energy explorer will take a 5 percent stake in the fields, Yoichi Miyazawa, the trade minister, said at a press conference in Tokyo Monday. The concession will give Japan access to crude from the Abu Dhabi deposits for 40 years starting Jan. 1, 2015, Inpex and the emirate’s government-owned oil producer said in an e-mailed statement.

“It makes sense for Abu Dhabi to name an Asian partner since more of their demand is coming from there,” said Robin Mills, a Dubai-based analyst at Manaar Energy Consulting. “Inpex brings quite a lot technically and they operate major projects.” A Chinese company could be one of the next bidders awarded a stake, he said.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. known as Adnoc picked Inpex from at least 10 bidders to join it and Total in the venture. Inpex agreed to pay Adnoc a signing bonus of about $1.1 billion, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported Monday, without saying where it got the information.

The project “is highly significant in terms of the company’s growth strategies, and also largely contributes to the long-term, stable supply of energy to Japan,” Toshiaki Kitamura, Inpex chief executive officer, said in the statement.

Abu Dhabi, the U.A.E.’s largest emirate, holds about 6 percent of global oil reserves. The U.A.E. capital plans to boost crude production capacity to 3.5 million barrels a day in 2017, from about 3 million barrels a day now. Output capacity from the onshore bloc in which Total and Inpex are partners will rise to 1.8 million barrels a day by then, from about 1.6 million barrels now, Adnoc and Inpex said.

Adnoc is spending about $22 billion on projects to increase onshore oil and gas production and export capacity, Omar Suwaina Al Suwaidi, the company’s deputy director for strategy, said at a conference in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 11. The concession encompasses the fields of Bab, Bu Hasa, Sahil, Asab, Qusahwira, Mender, Al Dabb’iya, Rumaitha and Shanayel, Adnoc said Monday.

Total, along with BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Partex Oil & Gas, was a shareholder in the Abu Dhabi onshore fields, under a 75-year concession agreement that expired in January 2014. Total became the first company awarded a stake in January, getting 10 percent of the holding. Inpex wasn’t involved in the onshore projects until now.

Adnoc, which plans to retain 60 percent of the partnership, asked the remaining bidders to match the $2.2 billion signing bonus Total agreed to pay for its 10 percent share in the fields, two people with knowledge of the situation said Feb. 12.

Adnoc was last week in advanced talks with two Asian bidders, while proposals “by international oil companies failed to fulfill Adnoc’s requirements and conditions,” Director General Abdullah Nasser al Suwaidi said, according to an April 20 statement from the company. China National Petroleum Corp. was among companies to bid for the concession, according to Energy Intelligence Group. Three calls to CNPC’s Beijing-based spokesman Qu Guangxue weren’t returned.

“China’s where the action is in terms of demand growth,” Mills said. China could win a stake in the concession if Adnoc wants a partner from the country with the prospect for the greatest future demand and if Adnoc deems the technical aspects of CNPC’s bid strong enough, Mills said.

Adnoc is seeking to boost the amount of oil it can extract from its fields to 75 percent of reserves, double the 35 percent of crude countries have historically been able to recover, Michael Townshend, regional president of BP Middle East, said last week. That requires “near perfection” in reservoir management, he said.

Murban grade crude pumped from Adnoc’s onshore fields can be exported from the Jebel Dhanna port in the Persian Gulf and from Fujairah, the U.A.E. oil trading hub that sits beyond the shipping chokepoint at the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait, separating the Gulf from the Indian Ocean, is the world’s most important transit bottleneck for oil shipments, according to the Energy Information Administration.

“This deal will contribute to Japan’s stable supply as exports from the block will bypass the Strait of Hormuz,” Miyazawa said at the trade ministry press conference.

The agreement will provide Inpex about 90,000 barrels of oil a day, which is equal to the company’s equity stake in production from the concession, Ryo Minami, head of the ministry’s oil and gas department, said at the press conference.

The U.A.E., a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is Japan’s second-biggest oil supplier after Saudi Arabia, according to Japan’s trade ministry. Japanese companies already have stakes in offshore deposits in Abu Dhabi and buy most of the emirate’s liquefied natural gas.