Gulf hits six-month growth streak

26 February 2025

 

The Gulf Projects Index grew by 1.1% in the five weeks from 10 January to 14 February, extending the market’s growth streak into its sixth month.

Over the past month, the market accumulated $47.4bn in value, led by additions in both Saudi Arabia and Oman, alongside region-wide growth.

The Omani projects market expanded by 6.9%, adding $17.3bn in value, led by the revival of the $6bn Duqm petrochemicals complex by Oman’s OQ8, Kuwait Petroleum and Saudi Arabia’s Sabic.

Muscat Investment House and South Korea’s Lupro also announced plans for a $4.5bn green ammonia production facility at Duqm.

Saudi Arabia’s projects market meanwhile added $18.6bn in value, driven by an $8bn “green hydrogen corridor” project planned by the local Acwa Power and Germany’s Securing Energy for Europe, with a view to developing green hydrogen capacity in the kingdom for export.

A $5bn artificial intelligence data centre project was also announced by Neom and DataVolt, alongside a range of other multibillion-dollar projects in the power and industrial sectors.

Widespread growth

All of the other GCC countries with the exception of Bahrain also saw project market growth, with Qatar adding 1.6% or $3.9bn in value, Kuwait adding 1.2% or $2.7bn in value and the UAE adding 0.3% or $2.6bn in value.

There was also growth outside of the GCC, with the Iraqi and Iranian projects markets also accruing value, at 0.7% and 0.2%, respectively.

The widespread growth makes for a positive start to 2025 that, coupled with the forward-looking nature of the new projects that are surfacing, is indicative of an ongoing economic upcycle and positive project market outlook.

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John Bambridge
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