Region boosts LNG spending
29 April 2024
This package also includes: Gulf players secure future of LNG projects
There has been a sharp rise in investment in projects aimed at expanding the production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the Gulf region since the start of this decade.
A capital expenditure of close to $38bn has been made by Middle East and North Africa hydrocarbons producers in the past 10 years, mainly on projects to increase LNG output capacity, according to data from regional projects tracker MEED Projects.
Almost three quarters of that spending has taken place in the past four years, and predominantly in the GCC.
The rise in the importance of natural gas, and therefore LNG, as an energy transition fuel has led to strong growth in its demand worldwide. Global trade in LNG reached 404 million tonnes in 2023, up from 397 million tonnes in 2022, with tight supplies of LNG constraining growth, energy major Shell said in a recent report.
Global LNG demand is expected to rise by more than 50% by 2040, as industrial coal-to-gas switching gathers pace in China and countries in south and southeast Asia use more LNG to support their economic growth.
Gulf players are keen to cater to this growing demand and dominate the global supply market, fuelling a wave of investment in large-scale production-boosting projects and terminal construction schemes.
The total LNG production capacity of the GCC is expected to reach an estimated 200 million tonnes a year (t/y) by 2030, cementing the region’s position as the world’s largest LNG supplier.
Taking the lead
Qatar has been jostling with the US and Australia for the title of world’s largest LNG provider for many years. Each of these three producers have clinched the top spot at different points, only to be unseated by one of the others again.
However, when its North Field LNG expansion starts to come online later in this decade, Qatar will be able to consolidate its position as the world’s largest producer and exporter of LNG in the long term.
State enterprise QatarEnergy is understood to have spent almost $30bn on the two phases of the North Field LNG expansion programme, North Field East and North Field South, which will increase its LNG production capacity from 77.5 million t/y to 126 million t/y by 2028. Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) works on the two projects are making progress.
QatarEnergy awarded the main EPC contracts in 2021 for the North Field East project, which is projected to increase LNG output to 110 million t/y by 2025. The main $13bn EPC package, which covers engineering, procurement, construction and installation of four LNG trains with capacities of 8 million t/y, was awarded to a consortium of Japan’s Chiyoda Corporation and France’s Technip Energies in February 2021.
QatarEnergy awarded the $10bn main EPC contract for the North Field South LNG project, covering two large LNG processing trains, to a consortium of Technip Energies and Lebanon-based Consolidated Contractors Company in May 2023.
When fully commissioned, the first two phases of the North Field LNG expansion programme will contribute a total supply capacity of 48 million t/y to the global LNG market.
And Doha is not stopping there. QatarEnergy announced a third phase of its North Field LNG expansion programme in February. To be called North Field West, the project will further increase QatarEnergy’s LNG production capacity to 142 million t/y when it is commissioned by 2030.
The North Field West project will have an LNG production capacity of 16 million t/y, which is expected to be achieved through two 8 million t/y LNG processing trains, based on the two earlier phases of QatarEnergy’s LNG expansion programme. The new project will draw feedstock for LNG production from the western zone of Qatar’s North Field offshore gas reserve.
Muscat moves up
Oman has been supplying LNG to customers, mainly in Asia, for many years. Majority state-owned Oman LNG operates three gas liquefaction trains at its site in Qalhat, with a nameplate capacity of 10.4 million t/y. Due to debottlenecking, the company’s complex now has a production capacity of about 11.4 million t/y.
France’s TotalEnergies has also committed to becoming a major LNG supplier in the sultanate. In partnership with state energy holding conglomerate OQ, TotalEnergies has achieved final investment decision on a major LNG bunkering and export terminal in Oman’s northern city of Sohar.
TotalEnergies is leading the Marsa LNG joint venture, which is developing the Sohar LNG terminal project. Marsa LNG was formed in December 2021 by TotalEnergies and OQ, with the partners owning 80% and 20% stakes, respectively.
Marsa LNG plans to develop an integrated facility consisting of upstream units that will draw natural gas feedstock from TotalEnergies’ hydrocarbons concessions in Oman, particularly from the sultanate’s Blocks 10 and 11.
The joint venture is also planning an LNG bunkering terminal and storage units located in Sohar port, and a solar photovoltaic plant to power the LNG terminal.
The Marsa LNG terminal will have a single train with the capacity to process about 1 million t/y of natural gas into LNG. The bunkering terminal will mainly supply LNG as a marine fuel to vessels. Marsa LNG has selected France’s Technip Energies to perform EPC works on the estimated $1bn project.
Adnoc’s ambitions
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has historically been one of the GCC’s smaller LNG producers. Adnoc Group subsidiary Adnoc Gas operates three large gas processing trains on Das Island.
At its Das Island terminal, Adnoc Gas has an LNG liquefaction and export capacity of about 6 million t/y. The facility’s first and second trains were commissioned in the 1970s and have a total combined output capacity of 2.9 million t/y. The third train came into operation in the mid-1990s and has a capacity of 3.2 million t/y.
The LNG production and export capability of Adnoc Gas will receive a major boost when a new greenfield terminal that it has committed to developing in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi, comes online before the end of this decade.
The planned LNG export terminal in Ruwais will have the capacity to produce about 9.6 million t/y of LNG from two processing trains, each with a capacity of 4.8 million t/y. The facility will ship LNG mainly to key Asian markets, such as Pakistan, India, China, South Korea and Japan.
In March, Adnoc Group announced that it had issued a limited notice to proceed to a consortium of contractors for early EPC works on the Ruwais LNG terminal project.
The limited notice to proceed was given to a consortium led by Technip Energies, consisting of Japan-based JGC Corporation and Abu Dhabi-owned NMDC Energy.
The overall value of the export terminal project is estimated to be more than $5bn. Adnoc is expected to issue the full EPC contract award for the Ruwais project in June this year.
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Contractor appointed for Oman power plants13 May 2026
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Financial challenge tests Iraq’s resolve13 May 2026
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Iraq LNG project delayed until next year13 May 2026
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A consortium of China-headquartered Shandong Electric Power Construction No. 3 Company (Sepco 3) and South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility has been appointed as the main contractor on the Misfah and Duqm combined-cycle gas turbine power plants in Oman.
The contracts cover the construction of two independent power producer (IPP) projects, with work scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2026.
State offtaker Nama Power & Water Procurement (Nama PWP) had previously signed power-purchase agreements (PPAs) for the development and operation of the plants.
The developer’s contract was awarded to a consortium comprising Korea Western Power (Kowepo), Qatar’s Nebras Power, the UAE’s Etihad Water & Electricity (EtihadWE) and Oman’s Bhawan Infrastructure Services.
The Misfah IPP will be led by Nebras Power and located in Wilayat Bousher in Muscat Governorate, with a planned capacity of 1,600MW.
The Duqm IPP will be led by Kowepo and located in Wilayat Duqm in Al-Wusta Governorate, with a capacity of 800MW.
According to Nama PWP, the total investment for the two projects is estimated at approximately RO1bn ($2.6bn).
MEED reported last October that Nama PWP had received three bids for the development and operation of the gas-fired IPPs.
The other bids included a consortium comprising China’s Shenzhen Energy Group and Oman National Engineering & Investment Company, and a lone bid from Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power.
Synergy Consulting is the financial adviser and lead adviser to Nama PWP for these projects.
In November, Oman’s OQ Gas Networks received final investment approval to proceed with gas supply connections for the facilities.
The Misfah IPP will receive 8.5 million cubic metres a day (cm/d) of natural gas. The Duqm IPP will be supplied with 4.5 million cm/d of natural gas.
In March 2025, the same Sepco 3 and Doosan Enerbility consortium signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Saudi Electricity Company for the expansion of the Riyadh Power Plant 12 (PP12).
Located about 150 kilometres northwest of Riyadh, the 1,863MW power plant is expected to be completed in 2028.
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Financial challenge tests Iraq’s resolve
13 May 2026
On 21 April, as a fragile ceasefire held between the US and Iran, the Trump administration halted a $500m shipment in cash headed for Iraq, as it sought to clamp down on Iranian-backed Shia militias in the country.
That cash, derived from Iraqi oil exports and routed via the US Federal Reserve to the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), is a vital cog in Iraq’s financial arteries, enabling it to cover foreign exchange demand.
This was not the first time that Iraq’s financial system has felt the US’s warm breath on its neck.
Back in February 2025, the US Treasury Department blacklisted five Iraqi banks from participating in dollar transactions, citing concerns about their role in illicit financial flows that benefited Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Iraq has also itself often circumscribed dollar use within its own financial system.
In July 2023, the CBI banned 14 banks from conducting dollar transactions in a crackdown on dollar smuggling. In February 2024, it banned a further eight banks from dollar transactions as part of a crackdown on fraud and money laundering.
Dollar pressure
The recent halt in US dollar cash shipments has nevertheless added pressure to Iraq’s parallel currency market gap, says Lucila Bonilla, lead emerging market economist at Oxford Economics.
“The gap between the parallel exchange rate has widened noticeably against the official peg, to around 20%,” she says.
“Dollar demand has risen as citizens and traders seek to hedge uncertainty – dollar deposits are up, and there are reports of a notable shift in the composition of cash holdings toward dollars.”
Ratings agencies see the US move on Iraqi dollar use as a challenge, but one that might not prove too onerous.
“Iraq can overcome a short-term war as it has $100bn of reserves and its debt profile is bearable,” says Gilbert Hobeika, a director at Fitch Ratings.
“But a longer-term conflict will hurt Iraq as the economy is reliant on oil revenues and government involvement, while facing at the same time risk from the US stopping delivery of US dollars.”
How persistent the pressure proves will depend largely on the duration of the Hormuz shock and how the relationship with the US evolves.
“Forming a new government that is palatable to the US could ease the pressure, though Iraq’s protracted government formation process adds uncertainty to that timeline,” says Bonilla.
The US-Iran war is putting even more pressure on banks.
“There are uncertainties with regard to depositors,” says Hobeika. “The public sector banks have weak management and governance structures. Financial reporting is weak, and that puts pressure on asset quality and capitalisation.”
If the conflict lasts a long time, the government will start withdrawing funds to pay salaries and contractors.
“That will affect deposits at the public sector banks in the near term,” says Hobeika.
State-heavy system
Iraq’s banking system is dominated by a handful of state-owned banks with a market share of 75%-80%, and then 60-plus private banks competing for the remaining 20%-25% of the pie.
“Private banks have struggled to compete in a market with limited opportunities, small deposit bases and a narrow range of products, often focusing on very basic activities,” says Lea Hanna, an analyst at Moody’s.
“In 2019, we had a wave of Islamic banks getting bans on dealing with US dollars – reducing what had been a primary source of business.”
A few private banks have benefitted since then, namely those with majority ownership by foreign banks such as National Bank of Iraq, a subsidiary of Capital Bank of Jordan, and Bank of Baghdad, a subsidiary of Jordan Kuwait Bank.
“Supported by their affiliates, these banks are relatively well run compared to domestic peers and have ample capital buffers,” says Hanna.
“They have captured a large market share of US dollar transfers thanks to their strong US correspondent banking relationships that allow them easier access to US dollars. They have seen a surge in their profitability and an increase in their deposit base.”
Financial reform
The CBI has attempted to introduce reforms to the banking system, as part of a wider effort to enable it to channel funding to the private sector.
In early 2025, it increased the minimum issued and paid-up capital requirement to ID400bn ($305m), along with a requirement to establish correspondent banking relationships for foreign-currency trading. The plan was to increase these in ID50bn increments every six months, to hasten sector consolidation.
However, of Fitch’s rated banks, just two – state-owned Trade Bank of Iraq and Mansour Bank, a subsidiary of Qatar National Bank – met the full capital requirement.
“While a lot of banks managed to increase their capital, a number of them didn’t and have been struggling to improve their systems and compliance with anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering regulations,” says Hobeika.
“These systems take a long time to improve, and it costs the banks too. For that reason, they have agreed with the central bank to postpone implementation to 2027/28.”
The expectation is that the number of private Iraqi banks will shrink from 60 to about half that number by 2028.
“Iraq’s banking sector is undergoing a significant overhaul, with the Central Bank pushing through higher capital requirements, improved anti-money-laundering compliance, and a shift towards commercial banks managing their own international correspondent relationships. These moves are welcomed,” says Bonilla.
But the harder work remains, argues Bonilla: state-owned banks still carry high levels of non-performing loans, weak governance and a history of politically directed lending, while private sector credit remains among the lowest in the region.
“The stakes are high as the IMF estimates that a comprehensive reform of the financial sector, alongside broader governance and regulatory changes, could double Iraq’s non-oil growth potential over the medium term, adding around 4 percentage points to GDP,” says Bonilla.
“For now, the reforms address the plumbing. The structural transformation of a banking system to serve the private sector is still largely ahead.”
Clouded outlook
So far, Iraq’s financial system seems to have averted a worst-case scenario of large-scale deposit withdrawals related to the Iran conflict.
Any deposit withdrawals seem to be more related to the introduction of a digital custom system ASYCUDA (Automated System for Customs Data) aimed at helping the government collect revenues, which saw a lot of traders trying to bypass the custom charges.
“This drove some exporters or traders to source US dollars outside the banking system, in the parallel market, to avoid stricter requirements and up-front payment of customs duties. That has now eased,” says Hanna.
Looking ahead, Fitch anticipates that most government financing is likely to come from the CBI through indirect purchases of government securities.
The central bank’s total claims on the central government represented about 52% of the domestic debt stock and 25% of the total debt stock at end-2024, notes the agency.
It envisages that a smaller portion will come from the government’s cash deposits, anticipated to fall to an average 12% by 2027.
Fitch says the CBI’s balance sheet limits refinancing risks, while the FX reserves are large enough to absorb the expansion of that balance sheet without putting pressure on the exchange-rate peg with the US dollar.
Surging foreign direct investment comes as a source of comfort, with annual inflows rising from around $2bn in 2022 to $5bn-$7bn from 2023 onwards.
Reform of the financial system will remain at the top of the new government’s in-tray.
The regional environment is unconducive to this mammoth task, and it can only hope that an end to the conflict would support ongoing Iraqi efforts to build a financial system comparable to that of some of its Gulf neighbours.
MEED’s June 2026 report on Iraq also includes:
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JinkoSolar signs 2GW deal for Abu Dhabi solar project
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China’s JinkoSolar has signed an agreement with Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) to supply 2GW of photovoltaic (PV) modules for the round-the-clock renewable energy project in Abu Dhabi.
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Dubai opens prequalification for Jebel Ali STP expansion
13 May 2026
Dubai Municipality has issued a request for qualifications for the Jebel Ali sewerage treatment plant (STP) expansion – phase 3 project.
The DS150/3 project will be delivered under a public-private partnership (PPP) model on a design, build, finance, own, operate and transfer basis.
The project involves the development of a new water resource recovery facility with an ultimate treatment capacity of up to 1 million cubic metres a day (cm/d).
It is being procured through Dubai Municipality’s Sewerage and Recycled Water Projects Department and will be delivered through a two-stage operational approach over a 30-year concession period.
The bid submission deadline is 18 June.
UK-headquartered Deloitte is acting as financial adviser, Aecom as technical adviser and CMS as legal adviser.
Dubai Municipality said the project will also include additional land uses and community-focused amenities as part of broader sustainability and urban integration objectives.
Phase one and two expansion
In April, the deadline was extended for contractors to submit bids for an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract covering the expansion of the Jebel Ali STP phases one and two.
Located on a 670-hectare site in Jebel Ali, the original wastewater facility has a treatment capacity of about 675,000 cm/d following the completion of phase two in 2019, combining approximately 300,000 cm/d from phase one and 375,000 cm/d from phase two.
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The new bid submission deadline is 11 June.
UK-headquartered KPMG and UAE-based Tribe Infrastructure are serving as financial advisers on the project.
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Iraq LNG project delayed until next year
13 May 2026
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Iraq’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal, which has an estimated project value of $450m, is now expected to become operational in 2027 due to delays caused by the regional war and disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Work on jetty reinforcement and fixed terminal infrastructure at the Port of Khor Al-Zubair has been delayed, according to a statement from US-based Excelerate Energy, which is contracted to develop the facility.
In its statement, the company said: “We are revising our full-year guidance to reflect the delayed startup of our Iraq terminal due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.”
It added: “The Iraq project fundamentals remain unchanged. Looking ahead, we continue to have confidence in our sequenced earnings growth through 2028.”
In October 2025, Excelerate signed a definitive commercial agreement with a subsidiary of Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity for the development of the country’s first LNG import terminal.
The integrated project includes a five-year agreement for regasification services and LNG supply, with extension options, and a minimum contracted offtake of 250 million standard cubic feet a day (cf/d).
Excelerate said: “Jetty reinforcement and construction of the fixed terminal infrastructure have been delayed temporarily due to the conflict in the Middle East and the terminal is no longer expected to commence operations in the third quarter of 2026 as previously disclosed.
“Project startup is now expected in 2027. The long-term fundamentals supporting the project remain unchanged, driven by chronic power shortages and limited domestic gas processing capacity in Iraq.
“Current conditions further reinforce the country’s need for reliable and scalable LNG import infrastructure and construction will resume as conditions allow.”
Earlier this year, Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity said that the terminal was on track to come online on 1 June, ahead of expected gas shortages during the summer months.
Then, in late April, the ministry said the project had been delayed by several months and was expected to come online in August at the earliest.
Although Iraq is Opec’s second-largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia, it is a net natural gas importer because its lack of infrastructure investment has meant that, until 2023, it flared roughly half of the estimated 3.12 billion cf/d of gas produced in association with crude oil.
Iraq’s reliance on flaring associated gas instead of gathering and processing it has prevented the country from fully realising its potential as a gas producer and forced the Iraqi government to rely on costly gas and electricity imports from Iran.
READ THE MAY 2026 MEED BUSINESS REVIEW – click here to view PDFGlobal energy sector forced to recalibrate; Conflict hits debt issuance and listings activity; UAE’s non-oil sector faces unclear recovery period amid disruption.
Distributed to senior decision-makers in the region and around the world, the May 2026 edition of MEED Business Review includes:
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