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  Amazon data centre hit highlights sector vulnerabilities

  2 March 2026

  

   

  Amid ongoing Iranian missile and drone attacks on GCC states, US cloud provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) has reported service outages following separate incidents at two of its UAE data centres.

  “At around 4.30AM PST [16.30 UAE time on 1 March], one of our Availability Zones (mec1-az2) was impacted by objects that struck the data centre, creating sparks and fire,” AWS said in an operational update on 1 March.

  At 10.46 UAE time on 2 March, the company announced a further update, saying that another of its three UAE Availability Zones had gone down.

  “We can confirm that a localised power issue has affected another Availability Zone in the ME-CENTRAL-1 Region (mec1-az3),” it said in the latest update. “Customers are also experiencing increased EC2 APIs and instance launch errors for the remaining zone (mec1-az1). At this point, it is not possible to launch new instances in the region, although existing instances should not be affected in mec1-az1.

  “Other AWS services, such as DynamoDB and S3, are also experiencing significant error rates and latencies. We are actively working to restore power and connectivity, at which time we will begin to work to recover affected resources. As of this time, we expect recovery is multiple hours away.”

  Regional footprint

  The company, part of the US’ giant Amazon group, is one of the world’s largest data centre and cloud operators. It operates three data centres in the UAE – one in Dubai and two in Abu Dhabi – and provides critical IT services to government and private sector operations and systems.

  Its Availability Zones consist of infrastructure in separate geographic locations, spaced far enough apart to significantly reduce the risk of a single event affecting customers’ business continuity, yet near enough to provide low latency for high-availability applications that use multiple zones.

  The targeting of the two data centres – and potentially others if the conflict continues – highlights the strategic importance of these types of facilities. The AWS attacks are believed to be the first time a data centre has been targeted in a conflict and are likely to drive a reconfiguration of future campus designs to account for similar risks.

  Such changes could include increased redundancies – particularly in power provision – enhanced structural resilience, and potentially a reconsideration of the location and clustering of data centre facilities.

  Historically, data centres in the region were largely smaller enterprise facilities dedicated to storage services for organisations such as banks. Their locations were often confidential and in areas that were difficult to target, making them harder to disrupt.

  However, the emergence of large in-region hyperscale data centres – with IT loads of 200MW or more and larger physical footprints – may necessitate a rethink of how such infrastructure is delivered, not just in the GCC but worldwide.

  According to MEED Projects data, there are believed to be about 185 data centres in the region, each with an estimated capex investment value of more than $10m, of which about 99 are either planned or under construction.

  

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  Edward James
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  Iran launches regional attacks after US and Israel strikes start

  28 February 2026

  Iran launched missiles aimed at Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE on Saturday, 28 February, after the US and Israel began airstrikes on the Islamic Republic earlier in the day.

  Official news agencies in the countries targeted by Iran have confirmed the attacks and that missiles have been intercepted by air defences. There has been limited damage reported from the strikes, although one fatality has been reported in the UAE.

  The UAE’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said there was a blatant attack involving Iranian ballistic missiles and that UAE air defence systems intercepted a number of missiles. It also confirmed that missile debris falling into a residential area resulted in the death of one civilian of Asian nationality. The UAE also said it reserves its full right to respond to this escalation and to take all necessary measures to protect itself.

  In Bahrain, the National Communication Centre (NCC) confirmed external attacks targeting sites and installations within Bahrain’s borders. It said the security and military authorities had immediately activated established emergency protocols and were taking all necessary operational measures on the ground.

  In Doha, the Ministry of Defence confirmed that Qatar had been attacked and that all missiles were intercepted before reaching Qatari territory.

  In Kuwait, the official Kuwait News Agency reported that air defence systems had dealt with missiles detected in Kuwaiti airspace.

  Meanwhile, in Amman, a senior military official from the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF) confirmed that air defences had intercepted and neutralised two ballistic missiles targeting Jordanian territory.

  Saudi Arabia has condemned the attacks and has “affirmed its full solidarity with and unwavering support for the brotherly countries, and its readiness to place all its capabilities at their disposal in support of any measures they may undertake”.

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  Main image: UAE announces successful interception of new wave of Iranian missiles. Credit: Wam

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  Colin Foreman
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  Egypt’s Obelisk equity move merits attention

  27 February 2026

  Commentary
  Mark Dowdall
  Power & water editor

  The first phase of Africa’s planned largest hybrid solar and battery installation project reached commercial operations this week. While the 1.1GW Obelisk facility in Egypt is significant in capacity terms, the more interesting detail may lie in its ownership structure.

  Scatec secured the 25-year US dollar-denominated power purchase agreement in 2024 and moved the project into construction as majority shareholder with Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries (Norfund).

  In November, France’s EDF acquired a 20% equity stake to join the project as a shareholder, while discussions with additional equity partners are at an “advanced” stage.

  With the development risk largely already absorbed and revenues secured under a long-term, dollar-denominated contract, the question arises: how are developers approaching capital allocation in the renewables market?

  Especially in emerging markets, sponsors must consider currency convertibility, sovereign exposure and overall balance sheet concentration. Bringing in partners after key milestones reduces that exposure without abandoning the asset.

  However, risk mitigation is not the only driver behind these decisions.

  This week, Masdar agreed to sell a 60% stake in a portfolio of wind assets in Portugal, a more mature European market with stable regulation and limited currency risk.

  Given the developer’s 100GW global target, this would seem a prudent way to recycle capital as part of an aggressive growth strategy.

  Meeting global climate targets will require sustained and rapid expansion of renewable capacity. Estimates suggest the world must add more than 1,100GW of renewables annually through 2030 to remain on track.

  Increasingly, as pipelines expand and capacity targets rise, developers are likely to weigh carefully when to hold assets and when to release capital.

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  Mark Dowdall
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  Petrokemya awards contract for ethylene oxide project

  27 February 2026

  Register for MEED’s 14-day trial access 

  Petrokemya, an affiliate of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic), has awarded China National Chemical Engineering Group Corporation (CNCEC) the main contract for an ethylene oxide catalyst project.

  The project covers engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of a new 4,000-tonne-a-year (t/y) ethylene oxide catalyst production unit, encompassing multiple units for catalyst carrier washing and drying, as well as supporting utilities.

  Ethylene oxide catalysts are the core technology of the ethylene oxide industry chain, directly determining production efficiency, product quality and energy consumption of the process unit.

  Petrokemya is a wholly owned affiliate of Sabic, with its main petrochemical production complex located in Jubail Industrial City, in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

  The ethylene oxide catalyst project is the ninth contract awarded by Petrokemya to CNCEC since 2015. Previous jobs cover EPC works on seven specialty chemical projects and a project to upgrade and expand output capacity at Petrokemya’s main methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) production unit.

  Petrokemya awarded CNCEC the contract for the MTBE plant expansion project in November 2022, with the contractor starting work the following month.

  Through the project, the output potential of Petrokemya’s MTBE unit will increase from 700,000 t/y to 1 million t/y, purportedly making it the world’s largest single-unit MTBE plant.

  CNCEC achieved mechanical completion of the MTBE plant expansion project in August last year, and the project is now understood to have been commissioned.

  

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  Indrajit Sen
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  Regulatory environment shifting for Kuwait oil and gas tenders

  27 February 2026

  

   

  Changes to the way key contracts are tendered in Kuwait have increased expectations that the country is shifting to a new regulatory environment for oil and gas projects.

  Contractors interested in bidding for Kuwait’s planned tender for a $3.3bn gas processing facility have been briefed that the country’s Central Agency for Public Tenders (Capt) will not be involved in the tender process.

  The exclusion of Capt from participating in the tender process has come at a time of increasing concerns surrounding the role of the agency, and has sparked speculation that it could be excluded from an increasing number of strategic tenders in future.

  Capt is responsible for reviewing technical and commercial evaluations of bids and verifying that bidding is competitive.

  Prior to its suspension in May 2024, Kuwait’s parliament was often blamed for blocking projects and halting the initiatives of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC).

  However, the suspension of parliament has not triggered an uptick in project activity at KPC, indicating that other problems are holding back decision-making.

  As time has passed, many stakeholders have started to view Capt as a key sticking point in the tendering process.

  One source said: “There is a lot of frustration within some parts of the country’s oil and gas sector about the time it takes for Capt to review everything and approve a tender.”

  Although this is not completely unheard of for small contracts tendered by Kuwait Gulf Oil Company (KGOC) to bypass Capt, it is unusual to see very large contracts bypass the agency.

  “A lot of people were very surprised when they heard that Capt would not be involved in this process,” said one source.

  “While the agency is resented by many in the sector that see it as a big reason for a lot of delays, it’s also highly respected for stopping corruption and bad practices.

  “If you look historically at which large contracts avoided a review by Capt or its predecessor, it was only the most critical and urgent projects.

  “The fact that this project is being permitted to side-step the agency’s process seems to mark a shift – and we could well see more big contracts following the same route in the future.”

  Past exceptions

  An example of a time period when key contracts were allowed to bypass Kuwait’s Central Tenders Committee (CTC), the predecessor to Capt, was in 1991.

  During this time, in the wake of the Gulf War, urgent contracts needed to be tendered by Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), including some related to extinguishing fires at oil wells, which were lit by retreating Iraqi troops.

  One source said: “I think the early nineties was the last time that large contracts were tendered by KOC without going through the relevant agency.

  “It is easier to bypass Capt when it is a KGOC contract, but it’s still very surprising to see it with a contract of this size.”

  If more contracts in the future are “fast-tracked” in the same way, it is likely that many stakeholders will welcome the effort to speed up tendering.

  However, some are worried that if the streamlined tendering model is replicated too widely, it could undermine checks and balances that stop corruption.

  “Kuwait is lucky as it has a system that makes corrupt practices very difficult to participate in,” said one source.

  “The country needs to be careful and make sure that it doesn’t undermine the rigour of the system by prioritising convenience.”

  Direct awards

  Another factor that has impacted expectations about the future of project tendering in Kuwait’s oil and gas sector is that the methods used for several large contracts have been recently tendered in other sectors.

  Key tenders that are impacting the discussions surrounding Kuwait’s oil and gas sector are the award of the $4bn Grand Mubarak Port contract to China Harbour Engineering Company in December and the award of a $3.3bn wastewater treatment plant contract to China State Construction Engineering Corporation in January.

  Both of those direct contract awards were government-to-government agreements that did not have an open tender process in Kuwait and were not approved by Capt.

  One source said: “These huge contract awards to Chinese companies without open tenders in Kuwait were extremely surprising.

  “If you had asked me at the start of last year whether this kind of thing would be signed off, I would have told you it’s highly unlikely.

  “I think there is no reason why we couldn’t see similar contract awards coming in the future in Kuwait’s oil and gas sector.”

  Another source said: “Just like the gas processing contract, these contracts awarded to Chinese firms seem to have side-stepped Capt in a way that is very surprising.”

  The planned $3.3bn gas processing facility is not the first time that KPC has tried to reduce its reliance on Capt for processing tenders.

  In April 2024, KPC launched its own tendering portal in an effort to streamline the tendering process for projects in the oil and gas sector.

  The portal was named the “KPC and Subsidiaries K-Tendering Portal” and is referred to as “K-Tender” by contractors.

  The portal gave KPC a way of tendering and communicating with contractors without relying on the Capt website.

  “The K-Tender portal was a step towards reducing reliance on Capt and gave KPC the flexibility to tender projects without Capt, even though, at the time, KPC made it clear that it intended to list all tenders both on the Capt website and its own portal.”

  The recent direct contract awards to Chinese contractors and the tendering process for the $3.3bn gas processing facility have sent a signal to contractors in the Kuwaiti market that more unusual tenders could be in the pipeline.

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  Wil Crisp