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Monthly briefing: 22 key developments in the region

28 September 2022

By Indrajit Sen

> Opec+ agrees minor production increase

> King appoints crown prince as Saudi prime minister

> Lebanon parliament approves $1.2bn draft budget

> Iraq court rules against national oil company

> Libya oil production continues to grow

> President approves Egypt's Olympic plans

> Dubai prepares hydrogen strategy

> GCC central banks raise interest rates

> UK and GCC hold ministerial meeting at the UN

OIL

Oil producers will raise output by 100,000b/d in October

The Opec+ alliance of oil producers decided in September that it would increase oil production by just 100,000 barrels a day (b/d) in October to support crude prices, which have fluctuated in recent weeks amid fears that a global economic recession will curb demand for oil. 

Opec+ members also increased overall oil production by 100,000b/d in September. 

The alliance agreed to increase its July and August crude production by about 50 per cent to 648,000b/d, fully restoring the 5.8 million b/d output that the group had cut at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Read more

IRAN

Deadly protests follow woman’s death in custody

Thirty-five people have been killed in protests in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody on 16 September.

Protests have been reported in 31 provinces.

The 22-year-old Amini had been detained for breaking headscarf rules and was reportedly beaten with batons.

Officials said she suffered heart failure and Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi has stated that she was not beaten. 

President Ebrahim Raisi pledged to crack down on the unrest on 24 September.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency reported on 25 September that there had been large-scale demonstrations to condemn the protests.



21 September: Iranian demonstrators take to the streets of Tehran during a protest for Mahsa Amini, days after she died in police custody. Credit: AFP via Getty Images

SALIK IPO

Dubai toll operator raises over $1bn from oversubscribed stock listing

Dubai toll operator Salik raised $1.017bn from its initial public offering (IPO) on the Dubai Financial Market, as part of a series of IPOs of state enterprises aimed at boosting the size of the emirate's capital market.

The IPO was more than 49 times oversubscribed across all tranches, with total gross demand at $50.2bn.

The company had set its offering price at AED2 ($0.54) a share, giving it a valuation of more than $4bn.

The emirate's government sold more than 1.867 billion shares in the company, or 24.9 per cent, up from the previously announced 1.5 billion shares, equivalent to 20 per cent.

ARAB PEACE

Saudi Arabia, Arab League and EU hold meeting in New York

Saudi Foreign Affairs Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud and Arab League secretary-general Ahmed Aboul Gheit attended a meeting of the Arab Peace Initiative Committee and its sponsors in the EU. The meeting took place at the UN General Assembly in New York. 

The Arab Peace Initiative, which Saudi Arabia launched in 2002, is a proposal to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. The members of the Arab Peace Initiative Committee are Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iraq, Palestine, Qatar, Lebanon, Morocco and Yemen. The initiative is sponsored by Spain, Sweden and France.

GCC

Two years of high oil prices set to improve regional outlook

Rating agency Moody’s Investors Service has said that elevated oil prices during the next two years will lead to a significant improvement in the fiscal and external positions of GCC sovereigns, partly reversing the sharp deterioration in their balance sheets since 2015. 

Improvements in creditworthiness will hinge on the extent to which regional governments utilise the windfall to address constraints posed by their exposure to cyclical oil price and demand volatility, and by longer-term carbon transition risks, Moody’s said.

The agency expects oil prices to average about $105 a barrel in 2022 and $95 a barrel in 2023. As a result, most hydrocarbon-exporting countries in the GCC will run fiscal and current account surpluses, allowing governments to pay down debts, rebuild fiscal reserves and accumulate foreign-currency buffers.

GULF BANKS

Regional banks are returning to pre-pandemic form

After a strong first half, ratings agency S&P Global expects that earnings for most GCC banks will almost reach pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year amid high oil prices and rising interest rates.

In the second half of 2022, S&P forecasts further strengthening of regional banks’ interest margins and a manageable rise in cost of risk amid lingering effects from the Covid-19 pandemic via loans that benefited from support measures and were then restructured. Combined, these factors will be a net positive for banks’ earnings.

SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi infrastructure and property projects top $1.1tn

The aggregate value of property and infrastructure projects since the launch of Saudi Arabia’s National Transformation Plan in 2016 has crossed $1.1tn as the kingdom continues to diversify its economy, according to real estate consultancy Knight Frank. 

The $500bn Neom city development is the biggest of 15 major projects in Saudi Arabia that are currently at various phases of construction. The kingdom plans to have more than 555,000 residential units, 275,000 hotel rooms, 4.3 million square metres (sq m) of retail and 6.1 million sq m of new office space by 2030. 

The country is also developing several large-scale tourism projects as it seeks to increase the economic contribution of the sector from 3 per cent of GDP to 10 per cent by the end of this decade.

JERUSALEM

UK prime minister considers relocating British embassy

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss is considering moving the British embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. 

Truss spoke about a possible move to the contested city during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September. 

Despite Israel having designated Jerusalem as its capital, Britain has long maintained its embassy in Tel Aviv. 

When he was president of the US, Donald Trump took the controversial decision to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem in May 2018. 

Both Israelis and Palestinians claim the city as their capital.

SAUDI ARABIA

First Saudi woman to be sent to space in a crewed mission

Saudi Arabia plans to send a woman into space for the first time as part of its new mission programme. 

A crew will be launched next year that will include the first Saudi female pilot and astronaut. 

The kingdom’s astronaut programme aims to produce qualified Saudi citizens who will take part in short- and long-term space flights, as well as participate in scientific experiments, international research and future space-related missions. 

The new programme comes under the umbrella of Saudi Vision 2030 and will fall under the National Space Strategy, the details of which will be announced in the coming months.

FIFA WORLD CUP

Qatar to shut borders to non-World Cup ticket holders

Entry to Qatar will be restricted from 1 November to citizens, residents and holders of the World Cup Hayya card, the tournament’s organising committee has announced. 

The suspension of visits by people not attending Fifa World Cup matches will continue until 23 December, five days after the final match takes place in Doha. 

The restrictions apply to all air, land and sea borders into Qatar. 

Football fans in possession of a match ticket for the World Cup must also apply for a Hayya entry permit – a pre-approved digital visa linked to a passport that offers free public transport around the country. 

The Hayya card allows entry into Qatar until 23 January 2023. 

Qatari citizens and residents, GCC citizens holding a Qatari identification card, holders of work entry permits and personal visas, and approved humanitarian cases will be exempt from the restrictions.
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    25 July 2024

    A team led by Japan's Sumitomo Corporation submitted a bid for the contract to develop and operate Qatar’s Facility E independent water and power producer (IWPP) project.

    Qatar state utility General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa) previously extended the tender closing date for the contract in response to developers’ requests, as MEED reported.

    Kahramaa received the single bid on 25 July.

    Sumitomo is understood to have submitted a proposal for the contract along with fellow Japanese utility developer Shikoku Electric, and Seoul-headquartered Korea Overseas Infrastructure & Urban Development Corporation and Korea Southern Power Company.

    The developer consortium's engineering, procurement and consortium (EPC) partner is South Korea's Samsung C&T, according to sources close to the project.   

    The Facility E IWPP scheme will have a power generation capacity of 2,300MW and a water desalination capacity of 100 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD).

    The contract to develop the Facility E IWPP was first tendered in 2019. The three teams that submitted bids for the contract in August 2020 were:   

    • Engie (France) / Mitsui (Japan) / Yonden (Shikoku Electric, Japan)
    • Sumitomo / Kansai Electric (Japan)
    • Marubeni / Kyushu Electric (Japan)

    The original plan was for Facility E IWPP to have a power generation capacity of about 2,300MW and a desalination component of 100MIGD once fully operational.

    However, Kahramaa revised the power plant’s design capacity to 2,600MW and sought alternative prices from bidders. 

    Kahramaa eventually cancelled and reissued the tender in September 2023. The current tender entails a power generation plant with the same capacity as initially tendered in 2019.

    MEED understands that the new target commercial operation date for the Facility E IWPP project has been moved to 2027. 

    The state utility’s transaction advisory team includes UK-headquartered PwC and Clyde & Co as financial and legal advisers, respectively, led by Belgrade-headquartered Energoprojekt as technical adviser.

    Facility E is Qatar’s fifth IWPP scheme. Completed and operational IWPPs include three projects in Ras Laffan – known as Facilities A, B and C – and Facility D in Umm Al-Houl.

    Awarded in 2015 and completed in 2018, Facility D was developed by a Japanese consortium of Mitsubishi Corporation and Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). South Korea's Samsung C&T was the engineering, procurement and construction contractor.  

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  • Iraq drives Gulf projects market growth

    25 July 2024

     

    The Gulf Projects Index rose by 0.7% from 7 June to 12 July, spurred by value gain in the Iraq projects market and, to a lesser extent, the UAE projects market, while the Saudi projects market experienced a slight contraction.

    The rise in the index represents the 16th consecutive month of upward trending value in the regional projects market, dating back to March 2023.

    Iraq rail plans

    The Iraqi projects market gained $26.3bn in value, or 7%, due to the reactivation of plans for a national network of high-speed rail connections across the country, from north to south as well as east to west. The costs of these Iraq rail schemes, which have been under study in various forms for several decades, are relatively indeterminate, but run into the tens of billions of dollars. The rail network is now in the design phase.

    In another major development for the country, the $27bn Gas Growth Integrated Project (GGIP) being undertaken by the National Oil Company and Basra Oil Company, in partnership with TotalEnergies and QatarEnergy, has also passed from study into front-end engineering and design.

    Elsewhere in the region, the UAE projects markets increased in value by $10.6bn, or 1.3%, while Saudi Arabia’s projects market shrank by a comparable $13.9bn, though lesser 0.7%, reducing its value to around about the value it held
    in mid-May.

    The other countries in the GCC and wider Gulf saw comparatively minor changes, with Qatar’s projects market adding $3.9bn or 1.7%, Bahrain’s projects market adding $2bn or 2.9%, Iran’s projects market adding $1.4bn or 0.5%, and Oman’s projects market adding a marginal $0.2bn or 0.1%. Kuwait’s project market value slipped by $0.7bn or 0.4%.

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  • Abu Dhabi tenders 400MW battery storage contract

    25 July 2024

    State offtaker Emirates Water & Electricity Company (Ewec) has invited prequalified companies to submit their proposals for a contract to develop and operate an independent 400MW battery energy storage system (bess) power project in Abu Dhabi.

    Ewec expects to receive bids by the fourth quarter of 2024.

    The planned facility is expected to provide up to 800 megawatt-hours (MWh) of storage capacity.

    Called Bess 1, the project will closely follow the model of Ewec's independent power project (IPP) programme, in which developers enter into a long-term energy storage agreement (ESA) with Ewec as the sole procurer.

    The first plant will be in Al-Bihouth, approximately 45 kilometres (km) southwest of Abu Dhabi, and the second plant will be in Madinat Zayed, about 160km southwest of the city.  

    According to Ewec, the request for proposals is being issued to 27 prequalified companies and consortiums, out of the 93 companies that submitted an expression of interest to bid for the contract in April this year.

    It did not specify the prequalified companies.

     MEED previously reported that the companies that submitted SOQs to bid for the contract include:

    • Acwa Power (Saudi Arabia)
    • EDF (France)
    • GE (US)
    • Jera (Japan)
    • Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco, South Korea)
    • Marubeni Corporation (Japan)
    • Samsung C&T (South Korea)

    Sources also cited that "several Chinese Bess manufacturers and suppliers" have applied to prequalify as investors in the project.

    The ESA will be for 15 years, commencing on the project's commercial operation date, which falls in the third quarter of 2026. 

    According to Ewec, the Bess project will provide additional flexibility to the system and ancillary services such as frequency response and voltage regulation.

    "Ewec is deploying BESS to enhance the flexibility and stability of Abu Dhabi’s energy network, allowing for the effective management of peak demand and integration of increasing amounts of renewable energy," the utility said in a media statement on 25 July.

    It added: "BESS technology will also provide crucial ancillary services such as frequency response and voltage regulation, further reinforcing the security of supply and supporting Ewec to increase its solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity to 7.5 gigawatts (GW) by 2030.

    "This accelerated growth in renewables will significantly reduce the carbon dioxide intensity of Ewec's power supply, from 330 kilograms per megawatt hour (kg/MWh) in 2019 to an estimated 190 kg/MWh by 2030."

    Global BESS market

    The overall capacity of deployed Bess globally is expected to reach 127GW by 2027, up from an estimated cumulative deployment of 36.7GW at the end of 2023, according to a recent GlobalData report.

    The report cited Chinese companies BYD and CATL and South Korean companies LG Energy Solutions and Samsung SDI among the top battery technology providers globally.

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  • Transforming Riyadh into a world-class city

    25 July 2024

     

    Riyadh is changing fast. As the Saudi capital, it is not only located in the country’s geographical centre, but also at the heart of Vision 2030 and the kingdom’s economic transformation, with a wide range of ambitious development projects.

    The city wants to be one of the best in the world. “The strategic vision for Riyadh focuses on transforming it into a world-class city that is sustainable, innovative and culturally rich,” says Fahad AlSolaie, deputy mayor for digital transformation and smart cities at Riyadh Region Municipality. 

    “The vision includes improving quality of life for residents, diversifying the economy away from oil dependence, and promoting green and smart urban development.”

    Riyadh’s ambitions are driven by population growth and people visiting the city for major global events. “Riyadh is expected to experience significant population growth in the coming years, driven by its economic expansion and global events hosted by the kingdom, such as Expo 2030 and major sports events,” says AlSolaie.

    “Additionally, the presence of large-scale unique projects like the King Abdullah Global Gardens, the development of Wadi Al-Sulay, King Salman Park and others contribute to the city’s attractiveness and livability, further boosting population growth. It is targeted for the population of Riyadh to reach 10 million residents, reflecting its rising prominence as a business and cultural hub. This growth will enhance Riyadh’s status as a dynamic urban centre, equipped to meet the evolving needs of its expanding population.”

    The vision includes improving quality of life, diversifying the economy, and promoting green and smart urban development
    Fahad AlSolaie, Riyadh Region Municipality

    Infrastructure projects

    Riyadh Region Municipality is playing a key role in the city’s development. “Riyadh municipality is responsible for a wide array of infrastructure projects that are crucial for the city’s development and sustainability. These include paving, asphalting and road stabilisation projects, which are essential for maintaining and improving the city’s road networks,” says AlSolaie.

    “The municipality develops public parks, ensuring that the necessary infrastructure is in place to provide recreational spaces. Bridge and tunnel construction and ongoing enhancements are also a significant focus, aimed at improving traffic flow and connectivity across the city. Furthermore, Riyadh is committed to extensive lighting projects and the maintenance of these systems, with the city one of the largest globally in terms of the number of streetlight poles.” 

    A key responsibility of the municipality is to maintain the city’s cleanliness and environmental health, adds AlSolaie. “This involves regular street cleaning, waste management and pollution control measures to keep the city clean and environmentally sustainable. These efforts are integral to quality of life, contributing to the vision of making Riyadh a more livable and accessible urban environment.”

    Signature schemes

    The municipality is also involved in the delivery of a series of signature projects in and around Riyadh. “The King Abdullah Global Gardens project aims to create a vast green space that combines natural landscapes with high-tech interactive exhibits, promoting environmental education and sustainability,” says AlSolaie. 

    The Wadi Al-Sulay development, meanwhile, is focused on transforming Wadi Al-Sulay into a recreational and cultural destination, featuring amenities that encourage outdoor activities and community gatherings.

    The municipality collaborates extensively with other government agencies and private sector partners to ensure cohesive and integrated development. This includes coordinating efforts on large-scale projects, urban planning and infrastructure improvements to support the city’s growth.

    “The municipality ensures alignment with master developers and major projects through regulatory frameworks, strategic planning sessions and collaborative platforms that facilitate integration of infrastructure projects and urban development efforts across the city,” says AlSolaie.

    With aspirations to become one of the world’s most advanced cities, digital transformation is helping Riyadh achieve its goals. “Digital transformation is vital for Riyadh Municipality for several compelling reasons. Firstly, it enhances service efficiency by adopting digital technologies, streamlining operations, reducing manual processes, minimising errors and speeding up response times. This not only improves service delivery, but also cuts operational costs, allowing for better resource allocation. 

    “Secondly, it improves citizen engagement through digital platforms that enable interactive and responsive communication. Citizens can easily access information, request services and provide feedback, enhancing transparency and building trust.

    “Thirdly, digital transformation fosters innovation in urban management using technologies such as the Internet of Things , artificial intelligence and big data analytics to optimise urban functionalities like smart waste monitor manholes and public safety. 

    “Additionally, it supports economic diversification by modernising infrastructure and services, thus attracting new businesses, especially in the technology sector, aligning with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030,” says AlSolaie.

    Online services

    Riyadh Region Municipality is moving its services online as part of the digital transformation. “Riyadh municipality is progressively digitising its services by offering e-services platforms where residents can access various municipal services such as mobile applications, geoportal web application and service requests online, thus increasing accessibility and convenience,” says AlSolaie. 

    The drive to digitise will enable Riyadh to become a smart city. “By implementing advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and geographic information systems, Riyadh Municipality is optimising key city functions such as reducing and monitoring visual pollution, enhancing public safety and conducting environmental monitoring,” he says. 

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  • WTTCO tenders water pipeline and reservoir packages

    25 July 2024

    State-owned Saudi water transmission and storage operator Water Transmission & Technologies Company (WTTCO) has issued two tenders involving a contract to build a water transmission pipeline in Dammam City and an engineering design services contract for water reservoir stations.

    The first contract is for the supply and installation of a water transmission system for the Second Industrial City in Dammam.

    WTTCO expects to receive proposals for this contract by 1 August.

    The second request for proposals involves a contract to provide engineering and design services for phases 2 and 3 of WTTCO’s strategic water reservoir station projects.

    The two phases cover reservoir stations in 150 locations and about 750 kilometres of water transmission pipeline.

    WTTCO expects to receive proposals from engineering consultancy firms for this contract by 4 August.

    The company has embarked on one of the world’s largest water conveyance and storage programmes as it seeks to increase potable water supply capacity across the kingdom.

    The expenditure programme, which WTTCO estimates is worth up to SR140bn ($38bn) by 2030, covers 396 individual projects, MEED reported in May.

    WTTCO’s objectives by 2027 are to have a total network size of 15,000km, 9.5 million cubic-metres-a-day transmission capacity, 118 pumping stations and more than 900 storage tanks.

    The capital expenditure programme was outlined in a WTTCO presentation at the Future Projects Forum in Riyadh on 20 May.

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