Good morning, ladies and gents. It’s another Friday, and another weekly round up of everything happening in our regional climate landscape. We have updates on green bond listings, news from Iraq’s solar sector, and more Acwa green hydrogen agreements rolling in. First, Trump’s climate bashing stops short when it comes to mining rare earth minerals…

THE BIG STORY ABROAD THIS WEEK- Trump eyes Ukraine’s critical minerals in return for aid: US President Donald Trump is looking to establish an agreement with Ukraine to gain access to its critical mineral resources in return for providing “close to USD 300 bn” in defense aid against Russia. The moves come as the US tries to reduce its critical minerals reliance on China, one of the world’s top producers of the minerals essential for defense and green transition.

But there is a catch: Ukraine is not known to have major reserves of rare earth critical minerals, but it maintains that its deposits of minerals like uranium, titanium, lithium, and graphite could be worth USD tns, with its Economy ministry claiming the country holds 22 of the 34 minerals deemed critical by the EU, including 120 mn metric tons of explored or partially explored reserves and an estimated 305 mn tons of further resources, according to Kyiv Independent. Russia, however, occupies about 33% of its alleged rare earths.

The story made headlines in the international press: Reuters | Associated Press | Bloomberg | The Guardian | The Washington Post | The New York Times | Financial Times | CNN

HAPPENING NEXT WEEK-

The Green Impact Expo & Summit will kick off on Tuesday and run through Thursday, 13 February in Casablanca. The event will bring over 1k attendees to discuss sustainable mobility, decarbonization, and green industry solutions in Africa and will feature workshops and speeches by industry leaders and senior Moroccan government officials.

The General Conference of Arab Union of Electricity will open its doors on Tuesday, 11 February, and run through Thursday, 13 February in Riyadh. The event will see policymakers, executives, and academics discuss the Arab world’s energy outlook, namely climate change’s impact on Arab energy grids, the future of EV infrastructure, innovation in Arab data centers, and more.

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING REGIONALLY-

#1- Morocco and Mauritania have inked an agreement to develop an electricity interconnection project, MAP reported on Tuesday. The agreement sets in motion a major grid connection project linking Morocco’s power infrastructure with Mauritania’s developing network, aiming to enhance cross-border electricity trade and grid reliability and efficiency.

The project could also facilitate energy exchanges between Europe and West Africa, and it is part of the broader West African Power Tool framework., MAP reported.

ICYMI- The two countries signed an MoU earlier in January to boost collaboration in electricity and renewable energy, focusing on rural electrification, clean energy initiatives, and harmonizing electrical standards.

#2- Abu Dhabi Investment Authority-backed solar module maker Premier Energies is putting its 1 GW solar cell factory plans in the US on hold, after President Trump pulled the plug on the green transition policies, Reuters reported on Monday. Worries over the outlook of US clean energy projects have weighed on the Indian company’s stocks, dropping by over 20% last month after peaking in December following its listing in September 2024 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

REMEMBER- The company formed a JV with US-based Heliene in July 2024 to build the solar cell factory, aiming to capitalize on the Inflation Reduction Act’s 10% tax credit for American-made solar panels.

#3- Egypt’s Raya Auto is planning to establish a USD 50 mn EV assembly plant in the country next year, CEO Mohamed El Naggar told Asharq Business on Monday. The plant will be developed in partnership with an unnamed Chinese company, with half of the project cost self-financed and the rest secured through bank loans.

There’s more: The company is also planning to invest USD 25 mn to build 30 fast-charging stations in Egypt over the next three years, Naggar added. The company is targeting 100% growth in sales this year to reach EGP 2.5 bn, El Naggar told Al Borsa on Monday at the launch of the Xpeng G6 electric car in the Egyptian market.

IN OTHER EGYPT NEWS- Another Egyptian ammonia plant is advancing? The US Export and Import Bank has reportedly given initial approval for a USD 847 mn loan for the Public Business Sector Ministry’s El Nasr Fertilizers and Benchmark Power International’s green ammonia plant in Egypt’s Gulf of Suez, Youm7 reported on Tuesday. The total investment ticket of the project was initially reported to possibly reach USD 1 bn.

What we know: The facility will be built on El Nasr Fertilizers’ 470k sqm land under a usufruct agreement, with a production capacity of 1k tons of green ammonia daily. The project will also include a 9.5 km pipeline linking the plant to Adabiya port for export, alongside a 400 MW wind power station and a seawater desalination plant for operational needs.

ICYMI- Egypt inked an MoU with a consortium comprising Acwa Power, Benchmark Powerm the Holding Company for Chemical Industries, China Energy, Germany’s DAI, and others to begin conducting feasibility studies on new projects to set up facilities to produce green hydrogen and its derivatives back in December 2022.

#4- Ma’aden is ramping up its copper search: Ma’aden plans to spend USD 2.5 bn annually to expand its phosphate and gold operations and dig new mines over the next five to six years, the mining giant’s CEO Bob Wilt told Semafor. However, its local operations will pivot more towards local copper exploration, aiming to spend 72% of its budget on the metal, Wilt added.

… as part of a major expansion: Ma’aden and PIF set up a JV while at the Future Minerals Forum in January 2023 to invest in mining assets globally, aiming to target “iron ore, copper, nickel, and lithium as a non-operating partner taking minority equity positions.” The JV could deploy USD 15 bn in the coming years, sources said in January. Also at the forum, Maaden also said it was acquiring a minority 9.9% stake in US tech and mineral exploration company Ivanhoe Electric (IE) for USD 126 mn and forming a JV with the company to explore mining projects at home, amongst other agreements.

#5- Xlinks seeks pricing contract: UK-based renewables developer Xlinks First is in talks with the UK’s labor administration to draw up a pricing contract for the energy that would be supplied by its planned Morocco-UK interconnector project, Bloomberg reported last week. The company is looking to secure a power price steeper than that of UK offshore windfarms, and lower than the price agreed upon for the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant. The project needed a price of GBP 70-80 per MWh (in 2012 terms) to access the UK government’s support mechanisms, CEO James Humphrey said last year.

A critical step: The company hopes that securing a pricing contract would also help it galvanize the needed financing for the project, whose bill could reach as much as GBP 24 bn (USD 30 bn), including about GBP 5 bn for the UK-based portions of the project.

The timeline: The company plans to make a final investment decision this year, with the goal of achieving financial close and beginning construction in 2026, Bloomberg reported.

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING GLOBALLY-

#1- European investors warn against ESG rollback: A coalition of institutional investors representing EUR 6.6 tn (c.USD 6.8 tn) in assets is urging EU officials to resist pressure to scale back ESG regulations, arguing that the bloc’s reporting rules are critical for capital allocation, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing a joint statement (pdf) by the coalition. The coalition includes the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), the European Sustainable Investment Forum (Eurosif), and the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).

Their concerns: The group warns that reopening European ESG regulations “ in their entirety” risks regulatory uncertainty and could undermine the EU’s Green Deal. Any changes, they argue, should be limited to technical adjustments and guidance on implementation.

But some players are pushing for the pause…: Germany and France, alongside major businesses like Unilever and TotalEnergies, are pushing back against the rules, arguing that they overburden small and mid-sized companies and make it harder for European firms to compete with US and Asian counterparts.

…including from our region: Qatar Energy CEO Saad Al-Kaabi went on the offensive againstthe ESG rules in December multiple times, blasting its expansive scope and hefty plenties and warning of a possible halt of Qatari LNG exports to the continent.

Regulations under review: The EU is reviewing several ESG rules under its omnibus process, set to take place later this month, which aims to streamline multiple regulations, Bloomberg adds. The focus includes potential adjustments to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Taxonomy Regulation, and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which governs supply chains.

MORE FROM THE EU- CBAM to exempt majority of EU businesses: More than 80% of EU companies subject to the bloc’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) will be exempt under a package of proposed reforms, the EU Tax Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told the Financial Times on Thursday. The move would free up 180k of the 200k affected businesses, limiting CBAM to the largest importers responsible for most of the emissions.

#2- AfDB pitches critical minerals-backed currency mechanism to lower financing risks in Africa: The African Development Bank (AfDB) is proposing the launch of a new critical minerals-backed “non-circulating” currency called the African Units of Account (AUA), according to a report (pdf) published in collaboration with KPMG.

The reasoning: The bank argues that any baskets of necessary or critical commodities can hold a more stable value than African countries’ volatile currencies. With Africa holding almost a third of the world’s critical minerals reserves, the bank hopes that backing national currencies with commodities comprised of critical minerals — whose value is expected to see a steady increase as the green transition spurs demand — would lower financing costs and risks in the continent, generating much-needed financing from foreign direct investments (FDI) in big transition projects.

In context: Africa only receives 3% of global energy investments annually, in large part due to volatile currency markets and dependence on the USD for trade, deterring possible investors and financing institutions, the bank said.

How would it work? The AUA would work similarly to the Gold Standard that pegs global currency to gold as a commodity. In that sense, local currency stability would be ensured by tying them to rare earth elements and critical metals, such as cobalt, copper, lithium, and manganese, pooled by mineral-rich nations. The mechanism will be managed by an African international financial institution as a settlement agent, which would be responsible for ensuring hard currency availability by managing the composition of its basket of critical minerals and trading them whenever needed to ensure currency and basket stability.

WORTH READING-

UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber’s global energy ambitions made headlines: UAE’s Industry and Advanced Technology Minister Sultan Al Jaber penned a piece for Semafor this week arguing for a reset in the global energy conversation. With energy demand projected to surge from 9 TW today to as much as 35 TW by 2050, Al Jaber calls for a pragmatic “and-and” approach that embraces a mix of lower-carbon gas, nuclear, hydrogen, and renewables instead of restricting energy options. “For too long, the world has been trapped in a false choice between energy access and sustainability,” he said, pushing for policies that deliver both abundance and decarbonization.

The UAE is already laying the groundwork for the shift, with Masdar’s renewables investments spanning over 70 countries and Abu Dhabi’s latest energy venture, XRG, partnering with Exxon, NextDecade, and Covestro on projects across hydrogen, liquified natural gas, and advanced materials. A first-of-its-kind UAE facility combining 5 GW of solar with 19 GWh of storage also tackles one of renewables’ biggest challenges: intermittency. The world needs not only “more energy, we need more positive energy,” linking energy with progress, Jaber said.

ALSO- Is XRG taking over some of Adnoc’s US assets? Adnoc appears to have transferred its stakes in Texas-based Exxon Mobil’s hydrogen project to its low-carbon energy investment arm XRG, according to Al Jaber’s statements.

REMEMBER- Adnoc reached an agreement to acquire a 35% stake in Exxon Mobil’s low-carbon hydrogen project last September, with the project launch set for 2029. It later transferred its stake to its ammonia arm Fertiglobe.

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CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

TheEgypt Energy Show will kick off on Monday, 17 February and run through to Wednesday, 19 February in Cairo. The event will bring together over 47k attendees and will highlight Egypt’s role in driving green energy transformation in the region under the theme “Building a secure and sustainable energy future.”

Oman Climate Week will begin on Monday, 24 February and run through to Thursday, 27 February in Muscat. The event will facilitate a dialogue on how Oman can align with the Paris Agreement and the goal to reach net zero emissions. Topics of interest include Climate Mitigation, Climate Adaptation, Climate Finance, Carbon Markets, Climate Technologies, Loss & Damage, and Social Inclusion.

The UAE will host Connecting Hydrogen MENA from Monday, 24 February to Wednesday, 26 February in Dubai. The event will be the largest hydrogen event in the region and will bring together over 3k attendees from over 50 countries to discuss collaboration in the sector along with ammonia, manufacturing, and transport.

The Carbon Capture MENA Summit will run from Tuesday, 25 February to Wednesday, 26 February in Dubai. The event will tackle net zero goals and emissions through the lens of decarbonisation, with 450 attendees slated to discuss the carbon capture, utilization, and storage value chain.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.