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• 
  Concerns increasing about delays to Iraq oil project

  Administrator

  4 May 2026

  

   

  Concerns are increasing among contractors about potential delays to PetroChina’s planned project to upgrade key infrastructure at Iraq’s Halfaya oil field, according to industry sources.

  The project, estimated at $200m, focuses on upgrading the utility system for the facility known as central processing facility 2 (CPF2).

  The project was tendered under the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) contract model, and bids were submitted on 20 December 2025.

  One source said: “Bid evaluation is ongoing for this project. No decision has been made on the award and there are increasing concerns that there could be delays due to ongoing regional tensions.”

  Iraq’s oil and gas sector has been severely impacted by disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz since the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February.

  Speaking on 2 May, Iraq’s deputy oil minister ​Basim Mohammed said that the country was producing 1.5 million ​barrels a day (b/d), down from about 4.3 million b/d before the US and Israel attacked Iran.

  Halfaya is one of the Iraqi fields whose production has been significantly reduced.

  On 5 March, MEED revealed that Iraq had prepared a sweeping four-part emergency plan for a large-scale oil-field shutdown to address the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

  The second phase of the plan involved reducing production at Iraq’s Halfaya field by 50%.

  The scope of work for the project to upgrade the utility system at CPF2 includes:

  • Fresh water system modification
  • Oily water transfer facilities
  • A 3. 20” crude oil header replacement
  • Power plant fuel gas system upgrade
  • A new wet gas line from CPF1 to CPF2
  • A high-pressure fuel gas connection line
  • Backup cable installation
  • Adding process and utility facilities
  • Providing civil, structural and architectural services
  • Adding a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system
  • Piping, power supply and distribution infrastructure
  • Instrumentation and anti-corrosion systems

  Halfaya is located in the Maysan Governorate in southeastern Iraq and is one of the country’s seven giant oil fields.

  The field is operated by a partnership led by PetroChina, a subsidiary of CNPC. The partnership also includes France’s Total, Iraq’s state-owned South Oil Company and Malaysia’s Petronas.

  Projects to develop the Halfaya gas field have seen significant delays in recent years. Halfaya is the Maysan province’s largest field, with estimated reserves of 4.1 billion barrels.

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  Wil Crisp
• 
  Kuwait recorded zero crude exports during April

  Administrator

  4 May 2026

  Kuwait recorded zero crude oil exports in April for the first time since the end of the Gulf War in 1991, according to shipping monitor TankerTrackers.com.

  The country’s oil and gas sector has been severely impacted by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which all of its crude exports are normally shipped.

  While the maritime monitoring service did not record any official exports via sea routes, it is possible that a small volume of crude may have been moved by truck to refineries in neighbouring countries.

  TankerTrackers.com said Kuwait used some crude production in its refineries, but could not export oil.

  The national oil company Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) declared force majeure due to the disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz on 7 March.

  On March 10, Kuwait reduced output to around 500,000 barrels a day (b/d), down from more than 3 million b/d before the outbreak of the US-Iran war.

  The disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is severely impacting the country’s economy.

  Kuwait has one of the least diversified economies in the region, with oil export sales typically accounting for roughly 90% of its government revenues and total exports.

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  Wil Crisp
• 
  UAE’s Opec departure fulfils multiple ends

  Administrator

  1 May 2026

  

   

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  The UAE announced its withdrawal from Opec on 28 April, ending a membership that predates the country itself: Abu Dhabi joined the producer group as an emirate in 1967, four years before federation.

  The exit is being presented, including by Abu Dhabi itself, as a clean strategic choice driven by energy ambition and national interest.

  The official framing is plausible. But there is a range of UAE interests at work, and much to question about the relative weight of these and the timing of the move.

  Structural rift

  The production case is the most structurally legible. Adnoc has invested $150bn over the past six years to raise capacity by nearly 40% to 4.85 million barrels a day (b/d), targeting 5 million b/d by 2027 – yet under Opec+, the UAE was constrained to a quota of 3.4 million b/d, leaving it pumping close to 30% below what it was capable of producing.

  The underlying economics motivate the UAE to pursue volume over price.

  The UAE’s fiscal breakeven oil price also sits at just under $50 a barrel according to IMF estimates, against Saudi Arabia’s inflection point closer to $90 – a structural gap unconducive to a unified policy.

  This generates mismatched motives that have been visible since the 2021 Opec+ standoff in which Abu Dhabi publicly broke with Riyadh over its baseline quota and began to engage in persistent overproduction.

  Sitting uncomfortably alongside this is the expanding Saudi-UAE rift, with the two countries now diverging on Yemen, Sudan, normalisation with Israel and posture toward Iran – all while actively competing for capital, talent and regional commercial primacy.

  On the day of the withdrawal, Energy Minister Suhail Al-Mazrouei told Reuters that the Opec decision was taken after a review of production policy alone, and that the UAE did not raise the issue with other countries before announcing it.

  The same day, the GCC summit in Jeddah was attended by every member’s head of state except the UAE’s – with Abu Dhabi sending its foreign minister instead.

  The absence of prior regional consultation and the UAE’s subsequent non-attendance at a key GCC summit is an indictment of the nadir to which the group’s internal relations have sunk over the regional response to the recent conflict.

  Speaking at the Gulf Influencers Forum in Dubai on 27 April, presidential adviser Anwar Gargash described the GCC’s response to Iranian retaliation as “the weakest historically”.

  UAE-US alignment

  The UAE’s loss of confidence in the GCC contrasts with its aspirations for relations with the US, which Abu Dhabi has only sought to bolster since the crisis, with Minister for International Cooperation Reem Al-Hashimy stating that the UAE would “double down” on its alliance with Washington.

  Despite the central US role in instigating the Iran conflict, the UAE-US alignment has become such a strong undercurrent of Emirati foreign policy – building on decades of progressive policy work – that doing otherwise is perhaps unthinkable.

  And US President Donald Trump has long attacked Opec as a price-inflating cartel and linked US military support for Gulf states directly to their oil pricing behaviour. An exit from Opec by the UAE therefore yields the added bonus of aligning with a US administration that has made lower oil prices a clear policy objective.

  Also central to this is the artificial intelligence (AI) investment pact sealed with President Trump during his visit in May last year – committing to a 10-year, $1.4tn investment framework with the US, spanning AI infrastructure, semiconductors, energy and manufacturing, with access to advanced chips as a central prize.

  The UAE’s latest sovereign vehicle, MGX, spun out of Mubadala and ADQ, is supporting the US’ $500bn Stargate venture (budgeted at $100bn in the first phase) as an anchoring partner alongside OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, as well as through its participation in the $40bn BlackRock-led acquisition of Aligned Data Centres.

  In this context, removing the UAE’s quota constraints will only lend further liquidity to Abu Dhabi’s strategic repositioning around AI chip and data-centre infrastructure.

  Judicious timing

  While the UAE’s Opec exit was not caused by the current logistical constraints in the Strait of Hormuz, they influenced the timing.

  Since the UAE’s west-east oil pipeline capacity is limited to around 1.8 million b/d, it cannot physically flood the market with oil, so the near-term price implications are structurally bound.

  This has blunted the impact and the potential diplomatic fallout that could have arisen from an exit at a price-sensitive time for the global energy market. The timing of the UAE’s move is therefore carefully calibrated for minimal present impact but maximum long-term gain when current conditions end.

  The longer-term structural consequences for Opec are a different matter. The UAE was one of only two members, alongside Saudi Arabia, with meaningful spare capacity, and its departure leaves the group with fewer tools to manage the market.

  In the wake of the UAE’s departure, both Kazakhstan and Nigeria have been flagged as candidates to follow. Opec thus faces a future of further fragmentation and ever-diminishing leverage over global energy prices.

  Even as the move increases broader energy market uncertainty, however, it may reduce uncertainty for the UAE.

  Opec negotiations are unpredictable and characteristically subject to the geopolitical mood. Outside of the group, Abu Dhabi’s production trajectory becomes a known quantity – gradual, measured and tied to its infrastructure rather than the outcome of the next Opec meeting.

  So while the motives behind the UAE’s exit are multiple, they are mutually reinforcing. Production ambition, diverging fiscal calculi, strained bilateral relations, US alignment and a repositioning around AI all converge not as competing explanations, but as reasons that have collectively made membership dispensable.

  They are also all layers of a singular decision that has been building for years – executed at a moment of reduced collateral cost into a market that is too disrupted to react.

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  John Bambridge
• 
  Oman’s Barka 5 IWP solar plant begins full operations

  Administrator

  1 May 2026

  Spain’s GS Inima has begun permanent operations at the solar photovoltaic (PV) plant serving the Barka 5 independent water project (IWP) in Oman.

  The solar facility is the third of its kind in Oman to power a large-scale desalination facility through a self-supply model.

  In a statement, GS Inima said it will provide up to 50% of the desalination plant’s electricity needs during daytime operations, improving efficiency and reducing reliance on external power sources.

  The PV plant has an installed capacity of 6.5MWp. It is designed to optimise energy consumption at the adjacent reverse osmosis desalination facility.

  The project was developed by GS Inima in collaboration with local firm Nafath Renewable Energy as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor. China-based OCA Global provided owner’s engineering services.

  The Barka 5 IWP has a desalination capacity of approximately 100,000 cubic metres a day.

  GS Inima won the contract to develop the Barka 5 IWP project in November 2020. As previously reported, financial close was reached in 2022, and construction of the facility was completed in 2024.  

  The self-supply solar PV plant is equipped with 10,504 bifacial modules supplied by China’s Jinko Solar. These are mounted on fixed structures provided by Mibet Energy.

  Power is managed through 18 Sungrow inverters with a total capacity of 320kWac each, while electricity is fed into the desalination plant through an 11kV connection.

  The integration of solar power supports the efficiency of the Barka 5 facility, which has an energy consumption rate of 2.7kWh per cubic metre. 

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  Mark Dowdall
• 
  Qiddiya receives high-speed rail PPP prequalifications

  Administrator

  1 May 2026

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  Saudi Arabia’s Royal Commission for Riyadh City, in collaboration with Qiddiya Investment Company (QIC) and the National Centre for Privatisation & PPP, received prequalification statements from firms on 30 April for the public-private partnership (PPP) package of the Qiddiya high-speed rail project in Riyadh.

  This follows the submission of prequalification statements for the engineering, procurement, construction and financing (EPCF) package on 16 April, as reported by MEED.

  The prequalification notice was issued on 19 January, and a project briefing session was held on 23 February at Qiddiya Entertainment City.

  The Qiddiya high-speed rail project, also known as Q-Express, will connect King Salman International airport and the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) with Qiddiya City. The line will operate at speeds of up to 250 kilometres an hour, reaching Qiddiya in 30 minutes.

  The line is expected to be developed in two phases. The first phase will connect Qiddiya with KAFD and King Khalid International airport.

  The second phase will start from a development known as the North Pole and travel to the New Murabba development, King Salman Park, central Riyadh and Industrial City in the south of the city.

  In November last year, MEED reported that more than 145 local and international companies had expressed interest in developing the project, including 68 contracting companies, 23 design and project management consultants, 16 investment firms, 12 rail operators, 10 rolling stock providers and 16 other services firms.

  In November 2023, MEED reported that French consultant Egis had been appointed as the technical adviser for the project. UK-based consultancy Ernst & Young is acting as the transaction adviser, and Ashurst is the legal adviser.

  Qiddiya is one of Saudi Arabia’s five official gigaprojects and covers a total area of 376 square kilometres (sq km), with 223 sq km of developed land. 

  

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  Yasir Iqbal
• 
  Bid deadline extensions hint at tighter project market

  Administrator

  1 May 2026

  Commentary
  Mark Dowdall
  Power & water editor

  There has been a steady run of bid deadline extensions across major power and water projects in recent weeks.

  The latest is the Al-Dibdibah and Al-Shagaya solar independent power producer (IPP) plant in Kuwait, where the submission date has been moved again to 31 May, following an earlier shift from February to the end of April. Similarly, bidding for the first phase of the Al-Khairan IWPP has also been extended.

  In Bahrain, bidding for the 1.2GW Sitra IWPP has been pushed back by another month to 17 May, having already been under main contract tender since last August.

  Meanwhile, in Dubai, contractors have been given additional time to submit bids for both the Jebel Ali sewage treatment plant expansion and a dams rehabilitation project in Hatta.

  Individually, these shifts are not unusual, and extensions are a routine part of the procurement cycle, especially with large, capital-intensive schemes.

  However, amid regional tensions and increasingly complex risk profiles, stakeholders are having to weigh up how much they can absorb, whether that is performance guarantees, financing exposure or delivery risk.

  For contractors and developers, this could mean looking more closely at supply chains, insurance costs and the potential for disruption. Lenders, too, are likely taking a more measured view on long-term exposure.

  This caution can show up in the bid process. More internal approvals, more conservative pricing, and in some cases, perhaps a hesitation to commit altogether.

  At the same time, strong pipelines across the GCC mean contractors are not short of work. Firms can afford to be selective, focusing on projects where risk and return are better aligned.

  Clients, in turn, face a choice. Push ahead with more limited competition or extend and try to draw in stronger participation. Most appear to be opting for the latter.

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  Mark Dowdall
• 
  Saudi Arabia launches $2bn Jawharat Al-Arous project

  Administrator

  1 May 2026

  Saudi Arabia has launched Jawharat Al-Arous, an SR8bn ($2bn) private-sector-led residential development in north Jeddah.

  The scheme covers 107 million square metres and comprises 18 residential neighbourhoods planned to accommodate more than 700,000 residents. It will provide more than 80,000 residential and commercial plots.

  The masterplan also includes 41 government-backed infrastructure and service zones to support large-scale urban expansion.

  The project was unveiled by Mecca Region Governor Khalid Al-Faisal and will be overseen by Saud Bin Mishaal Bin Abdulaziz.

  According to a recent report by real estate firm Cavendish Maxwell, Jeddah’s residential stock stood at about 1.09 million units at the end of 2025, following the completion of around 4,000 units that year.

  An expanding pipeline of about 18,000 units in 2026 and 22,000 units in 2027 is expected to bring total stock to around 1.14 million units by 2027, gradually adding supply without destabilising market equilibrium.

  GlobalData expects the Saudi construction industry to grow by 3.6% in real terms in 2026, supported by increased foreign direct investment (FDI) and investment in the housing and manufacturing sectors.

  The residential construction sector is forecast to grow by 3.8% in real terms in 2026 and to record an average annual growth rate of 4.7% between 2027 and 2030, supported by Saudi Vision 2030’s goal of increasing homeownership from 65.4% in 2024 to 70% by 2030, including through the delivery of 600,000 homes by 2030.

  ---

  MEED’s April 2026 report on Saudi Arabia includes:

  > COMMENT: Risk accelerates Saudi spending shift
  > GVT &: ECONOMY: Riyadh navigates a changed landscape
  > BANKING: Testing times for Saudi banks
  > UPSTREAM: Offshore oil and gas projects to dominate Aramco capex in 2026
  > DOWNSTREAM: Saudi downstream projects market enters lean period
  > POWER: Wind power gathers pace in Saudi Arabia
  > WATER: Sharakat plan signals next phase of Saudi water expansion
  > CONSTRUCTION: Saudi construction enters a period of strategic readjustment
  > TRANSPORT: Rail expansion powers Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure push

  To see previous issues of MEED Business Review, please click here

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  Yasir Iqbal
• 
  Damage to US bases in region expected to cost more than $15bn

  Administrator

  1 May 2026

  The $25bn estimate a Pentagon official gave US lawmakers on 29 April did not include the cost of repairing damage to US bases in the Middle East, and the real cost of the war is likely to be between $40bn and $50bn, according to CNN.

  That would put the cost of repairing bases and replacing destroyed assets at between $15bn and $25bn.

  Jules Hurst III, the Pentagon official serving as the agency’s comptroller, told the House Armed Services Committee that “most” of the $25bn he cited had been spent on munitions. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth declined to say whether the figure included repairs to damaged US bases.

  Iranian strikes across the Gulf in the early days of the war significantly damaged at least nine US military sites in 48 hours, hitting facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, the UAE and Qatar.

  Six US servicemembers were killed in an attack on a command post in Kuwait, and 20 more were injured.

  Three sources told CNN that the figure provided to the House Armed Services Committee did not include the cost of rebuilding US military installations and replacing destroyed assets.

  One source said the true cost would likely be between $40bn and $50bn.

  US contractors such as KBR and Fluor, as well as local firms, are likely to be among the leading contenders for contracts to repair and rebuild US bases in the region.

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  Wil Crisp