Good morning, ladies and gents, and happy Thursday. We open with the strait, and we’ll be on dry land by the time your coffee is gone.
Iran says four oil tankers caught fire after hitting mines while trying to pass through Hormuz yesterday. The Revolutionary Guards said the tankers were attempting a “prohibited passage south of the Strait of Hormuz” and that two other vessels were halted. It came a day after President Donald Trump said the US had launched strikes on Iran, and President Masoud Pezeshkian has said “no one will benefit from this war” if fighting resumes.
Three’s a charm? Adnoc has denied it, but Bloomberg’s sources say the UAE is mulling a third west-east pipeline to take crude around the strait. Bloomberg reports that plans could still change and that third parties may also be able to use the line through to Fujairah. Adnoc says the reports are “purely speculative” and “not accurate.” The existing Habshan-Fujairah line helped keep supplies moving, and Adnoc has been accelerating work on its West-East pipeline, which is set to double Hormuz-bypassing export capacity and could begin supplying Asian customers by early next year, as we reported last week.
The road is the other way to move goods around the Gulf, and it’s our Lede this morning. The roads are built and open, and customs is the part the GCC has integrated furthest. Who gets to drive on them is still decided by six governments: a truck’s cargo, vehicle, and driver each have to clear their own rules at a border, and clearing one border doesn’t give the driver the right to cross the next.
One quick one for the bond watchers: Pearl Petroleum priced a USD 500 mn five-year senior secured bond at a 10.375% coupon, joint operators Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum said (pdf) yesterday. Books came in 1.7x oversubscribed, which let it upsize from an initial USD 400 mn, and the money refinances an existing USD 350 mn bond and funds development at the Khor Mor and Chemchemal gas fields in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.
It’s also Pipeline day, so our weekly check on what moved in the Gulf’s megaproject pipeline is further down. This week, Gulf money went shopping abroad for Australian LNG, US power, and a UK data center.
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The roads connecting the six GCC states are built, but each government still decides which drivers and trucks can use them. Every truck crossing a GCC border has to clear three sets of rules at once, covering the cargo, the vehicle, and the driver, says Antonella Teodoro, senior consultant at MDS Transmodal. Any one of them can hold up a shipment, but the bigger risk is the three falling out of step, she tells EnterpriseAM.
Of the three, customs is the one the GCC has integrated furthest. Saudi Arabia finished automating TIR procedures at all its customs ports in 2024, linking clearance electronically to the international transit system. Driver visas, vehicle-entry rules, and operating rights are still set country by country.
Carriers ran into that split during the regional disruption: IRU said in March that TIR was supporting essential movements between Saudi Arabia and Qatar through fast-track customs procedures. By August, Expeditors was reporting reduced trucking capacity into and out of Qatar because of national driver-entry restrictions. It also reported higher rate pressure across the region as equipment was repositioned and freight flows shifted. To freeup trucks already in the region, Saudi Arabia relaxed its own truck-age and entry rules.
Six stamps
The driver rules carriers ran into have been on the GCC’s agenda for more than two decades. Interior ministers agreed in 2001 that truck drivers and their assistants should get entry visas at border posts to make intra-GCC trade easier. In 2003 they agreed drivers should be allowed to stay for at least a week. Most member states implemented those decisions through their own procedures, the GCC Secretariat says.
Those national procedures are still visible at the driver level today. Qatar gives GCC-resident truck drivers an on-arrival visa at its land border: either a one-week single entry, or a three-month multiple entry with stays capped at a week per trip. Oman runs its own truck-driver visa, and the UAE offers 30-, 60-, and 90-day multiple-entry visas for truck drivers. Clearing one border doesn’t give a driver the right to cross the next.
The trucks face their own national limits: Qatar requires foreign-registered trucks to get permission before picking up a return load. It restricts that load to cargo heading to the state where the truck is registered and bars foreign trucks from carrying goods between two points inside Qatar. Oman requires foreign trucks to arrive loaded unless they hold an empty-entry permit from its Bayan customs system, and requires permits for trucks transiting the country or carrying exceptional loads. The GCC’s unified land transport law keeps host-country approval in place for several of these movements, so the region’s trucks don’t work as one interchangeable fleet.
Waiver season
The Saudi package started with the trucks themselves. Saudi Arabia temporarily raised the maximum operating age of freight trucks to 22 years, including trucks from other GCC states. It also let GCC trucks enter empty to collect outbound goods, refrigerated cargo included.
Saudi Arabia also opened its ports and airports as a pickup point for food bound for neighboring markets. The Transport General Authority allowed empty GCC refrigerated trucks in to collect food and perishables arriving through Saudi ports and airports for onward delivery to other Gulf states. The Kingdom announced storage-fee exemptions of up to 60 days for GCC imports and exports as part of the same package.
Operators added trucks and corridors of their own over the same period. DP World has moved around 500k TEU through its GCC road and rail network since March and now runs c. 3k truck movements a day after adding 700 trucks. It opened fast-track bonded corridors linking east-coast gateways to Jebel Ali and Sohar. It also used Jeddah Islamic Port’s South Container Terminal as an alternative Red Sea routing point and opened a 100k sqm empty-container depot in Dubai to make equipment easier to position.
Fleet size alone doesn’t tell you how much capacity the region has. A truck adds to cross-border capacity when it’s available, suited to the load, positioned where it’s needed, permitted on the corridor, and able to arrive on time, Wolfgang Lehmacher, former head of supply chain and transport industries at the World Economic Forum, tells us.
Meter’s running
When a truck or driver can’t continue, the shipment usually still arrives, just later and at a higher price. Shippers should measure the hit as a rise in total logistics cost rather than in the trucking rate, says Yasmine Rashed, associate professor of transport economics at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport. That covers time and reliability losses, inventory and disruption costs, and extra transaction and compliance work, she tells us.
The extra cost builds up in waiting time and workarounds: Shippers end up paying for waiting, additional handling, replacement trucks, subcontracting, empty repositioning, or underused assets, Teodoro says. Small administrative problems can carry an outsized cost because they interrupt a trip planned as one continuous run, she adds.
Larger fleets are better placed to carry those costs than small carriers. Permits, customs registrations, and local support act like fixed compliance costs, which a big fleet can spread across more trucks and driver pools in more markets, Jenan Hasan, economist at Transport Intelligence, tells us. Smaller carriers have fewer people, vehicles, and local relationships to redeploy when the original plan falls through, she adds.
Pass the parcel
The usual fix is to hand the load to someone who can finish the trip. A backup plan works when it costs little in switching and delays and doesn’t change the shipment’s legal and transit status, Rashed argues. For sealed containers, that usually means swapping the driver or tractor without opening the cargo. Hazardous liquid loads are different, because transloading them adds safety, contamination, and permitting risks, so the likelier fallback there is another authorized driver or tractor, she adds.
A local carrier across the border is one way to do that: Once goods clear customs, a local partner can collect the cargo in its own truck, so the original driver and vehicle don’t have to continue, Hasan says. That mirrors the border handovers common in other cross-border trucking markets, she notes, though Transport Intelligence doesn’t have data showing its standard practice in the GCC.
How often shipments need a handoff is a good measure of how integrated the market is. Each extra driver, carrier, or transfer keeps the cargo moving but adds cost, coordination, and potential delay, Teodoro says. The more often operators have to step in, the less the GCC’s roads work as a single market, even when the goods arrive where they were supposed to.
The next marker comes in March: Saudi Arabia has already extended its 22-year truck-age waiver once, to 26 March 2027 (Okaz). If Riyadh renews it again or writes it into permanent rules, the extra capacity stays on the road after the pressure eases.
Lenders queued up for Ruwais: Ta’ziz, the Adnoc-ADQ joint venture, has closed USD 1.39 bn in financing for an ammonia plant and a chemicals export terminal at the zone, and both financings were oversubscribed, according to a press release. Together with the USD 2 bn it raised for its methanol plant in April, it has now secured more than USD 3.39 bn for three projects in a zone set to produce 4.7 mn tons of chemicals a year by 2028.
The export terminal takes about two-thirds of the money: Ta’ziz Terminals, a joint venture between Adnoc and Star Energy Advario, secured more than USD 928 mn from nine regional and international banks, including USD 225 mn in Islamic financing. The long-term loan is non-recourse, meaning lenders are repaid from the project rather than by its shareholders. The terminal will store liquid chemicals from the zone and ship them to regional and global markets. Rotary Engineering has completed about 70% of the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) work.
IN CONTEXT- The terminal’s storage facilities and pipelines are part of a USD 2 bn package of infrastructure contracts Ta’ziz awarded in 2024. That package also included NMDC Group’s USD 300 mn contract to build the zone’s chemicals port, which was slated for completion in 4Q 2026. Adnoc Logistics & Services signed a 50-year agreement last year to own and operate the port. Its two liquid berths will handle cargoes including ammonia, methanol, and caustic soda.
The ammonia plant is closer to the finish line. Ta’ziz, Fertiglobe, Japan’s Mitsui, and South Korea's GS Energy raised more than USD 460 mn through a six-year loan from seven banks. Contractor Tecnimont has completed more than 90% of the EPC work on the plant, which is designed to produce 1 mn tons of ammonia a year.
REMEMBER- Ta’ziz already has buyers lined up for much of what Ruwais will produce. In May, the company signed USD 28.5 bn worth of agreements spanning five to 25 years to secure raw materials and sell chemicals from the zone. Adnoc and Proman will buy methanol, while Emirates Global Aluminium is among the buyers for caustic soda.
Mubadala-owned Moeve is nearly out of oil and gas production: Spanish energy company Moeve, almost 62% owned by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala, has agreed to sell its minority stakes in three Algerian oilfields to Indonesia’s state-owned Pertamina, according to a press release. Pertamina, which has run upstream operations in Algeria since 2014, will take Moeve’s non-operated stakes in the Rhourde el Khrouf, Bir el Msana, and Ourhoud fields in the Berkine Basin for an undisclosed sum. The transfers still need approval from Algerian authorities.
One more sale, and it's done: Moeve has separately agreed to sell its minority stake in Algeria’s Timimoun gas field, Reuters reports, citing a person familiar with the matter. Together, the Algerian sales will complete its exit from exploration and production, and it will keep its refineries in Spain, which have benefited from strong refining margins in recent quarters.
BACKGROUND- Moeve, then known as Cepsa, sold its Abu Dhabi oil interests to TotalEnergies in 2023. These included a 20% stake in the offshore concession covering Satah Al Razboot and Umm Lulu. A year later, it sold its upstream business in Peru to Canada’s PetroTal.
Moeve is rebuilding around hydrogen and biofuels: The company is pursuing an EUR 8 bn investment plan centered on low-carbon businesses. That includes Onuba, a green hydrogen project in southern Spain whose 300 MW first phase began construction in September. That phase is a joint investment of more than EUR 1 bn, and Moeve holds 51%.
Algeria stays on the map: The company says it will keep exploring renewables, green hydrogen, and chemicals in the country. It signed an agreement with state energy company Sonatrach in 2024 to study a potential green hydrogen project aimed mainly at supplying Europe.
Pure DC has a new USD 1.9 bn credit line, and FAB is one of its new lenders. Oaktree Capital Management-backed Pure Data Centers Group (Pure DC) has put in place a financing framework of about USD 1.9 bn to fund its build-out across Europe and the Middle East, according to a statement. It’s made up of a USD 780 mn Platform Growth Facility and a USD 1.1 bn accordion that lets the company expand the borrowing. Citigroup Global Markets, First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), and Infranity join existing lenders ABN Amro, Allianz Global Investors, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.
The money will go to land and power for future campuses: Pure DC will use the facility to support its development pipeline and buy future sites. The money will also go toward securing energy for new data centers, Executive Chairman and interim CEO Gary Wojtaszek told Bloomberg. The London-based developer is targeting 3 GW of total capacity. It works with energy companies on more integrated power supplies, including on-site generation at its Dublin campus.
Banks over bonds: Pure DC tried to raise financing in the bond market earlier this year, then dropped the plan when traditional lenders offered more favorable terms. Financing for large AI campuses has become more expensive and lenders more selective, as investors grow concerned about the debt flowing into AI infrastructure.
Pure DC raised more than USD 6.2 bn in a year: Its earlier rounds include USD 2.7 bn in May. Of that, USD 2.15 bn was backed by its Dublin and Amsterdam campuses. In July, it added EUR 1.3 bn in senior debt for the first phase of its Seinäjoki AI campus in Finland. That 110 MW phase is fully leased, and the site can scale beyond 550 MW. Microsoft is among the campus’s customers, Bloomberg reports.
The new debt is meant to make an equity raise easier: Wojtaszek expects the new debt to make it easier to raise equity by validating the company’s business model. “People are just recognizing how the value associated with controlling the real estate and doing development is much safer than what some of the other investment alternatives are,” he told Bloomberg.
The regional war is expected to wipe 150 bn cbm off global LNG supply between 2026 and 2030, equivalent to 15% of the new liquefaction capacity expected to come online over that period, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday in its Global Gas Security Review (pdf). Most of the losses will come in 2026 and 2027, delaying the wave of new supply that was expected to ease a tight global gas market.
Gulf capacity will take time to come back even after Hormuz reopens. Missile strikes in March damaged two production trains at Qatar’s Ras Laffan facility, taking 12.8 mn tons of annual capacity offline, or roughly 17% of the country’s total. QatarEnergy’s latest assessment, cited by the IEA, is that restoring operations could take three years, a cumulative loss of more than 50 bn cbm of LNG. The first train of the North Field East expansion is now expected online in 1H 2027, later than its earlier end-2026 target. The four liquefaction projects that have reached final investment decisions since March are all in North America and won’t start production until 2030 at the earliest.
That’s a sharp turn from the IEA’s outlook at the start of the year.In January, the IEA expected a sharp rise in LNG supply to ease market fundamentals in 2026. Global LNG supply is on track to fall 3%, or nearly 20 bn cbm, this year — its biggest annual decline on record. Weaker demand is keeping the market from running short: Global gas consumption is expected to fall around 1.5% this year, marking its third annual decline since 2020, according to the IEA. Demand in Asia-Pacific is forecast to drop 1.5% as higher LNG prices push power producers toward coal, while Europe is expected to see a 3% decline as industrial consumers cut back. In the Middle East, damage to production and processing facilities is expected to drive a 10% drop in consumption. Higher prices have also priced some buyers out of the spot market altogether. Pakistan, for example, twice rejected a September LNG cargo priced at nearly USD 27 / mmBtu.
Europe could be competing for significantly more LNG next summer. EU gas storage stood at 75% at the end of October, below the bloc’s 80% minimum fill target, itself a derogation from the regulation’s 90% and its lowest level since 2013, according to the IEA. The agency estimates the EU would need to inject 57-83 bn cbm next summer to bring storage back to average levels by November 2027, compared with a five-year average of 50 bn cbm. The market is already reflecting that pressure, with May 2027 contracts trading above those for November 2027 and the spread recently hitting a record high, Bloomberg reports. That reverses the usual seasonal pricing pattern, where summer gas trades at a markdown to winter.
Pay later
Egypt has become far more exposed to the LNG market this year. The country’s LNG imports rose 70% y-o-y, or 6.5 bn cbm, in January-October, with net imports exceeding domestic gas production for the first time in July. Tenders signed before the war helped Egypt avoid the worst of the summer price increases, but that protection was expected to fade toward year-end, Kpler’s JP Lacouture told EnterpriseAM in September.
The higher prices are now starting to bite. The government has asked suppliers to defer five of the 15 LNG cargoes scheduled for November after the cost per shipment rose above USD 100 mn, roughly twice what it was in September, Asharq Business reports, citing an unnamed government official. Gas allocations to fertilizer and methanol plants have also been cut by 20% since Monday, 2 November, according to Asharq. Egypt had already budgeted for a 26% increase in its gas import bill to USD 10.7 bn this fiscal year.
Adnoc Gas has a potential new buyer for the extra gas it’s bringing online. Adnoc Gas and Etihad Water and Electricity (EtihadWE) signed an agreement to explore supplying gas to new power plants across the Northern Emirates, state news agency Wam reports. A supply agreement would give Adnoc Gas a domestic market for the additional volumes its growth program is set to unlock, and give EtihadWE fuel for the gas-fired part of its planned mix of gas and renewable generation. Neither side disclosed volumes, contract value, or delivery timelines.
The UAE wants to stop importing gas by 2030: The country still imports gas to cover a domestic supply deficit, which stood at an estimated 17.7 bn cbm in 2025. Adnoc Gas projects domestic gas demand will grow 4-5% a year between 2023 and 2030. To close the gap, Adnoc Gas is spending USD 13.2 bn on its Rich Gas Development program to expand processing capacity and USD 2.4 bn on its Estidama project to extend the national gas network.
Rack and roll
Aramex is going after the freight side of the AI data center buildout. Dubai-listed Aramex will now move power, cooling, and computing equipment from factories to working data centers under a dedicated service, the company said in a press release. The service went live earlier this week across the GCC, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and the southern US (Texas and Louisiana). It covers oversized transformers and chillers, AI server racks, customs clearance, placement inside the data hall, and spare parts once a site is running.
One late delivery can stall a whole build: Transformers and chillers can take a year or more to reach a site from the day they’re ordered. A crated AI rack weighs about 1.75 metric tons and can be worth USD several mn. Aramex says it will track each rack’s shock, tilt, temperature, and humidity until it is handed over.
IN CONTEXT- Saudi Arabia alone has several large builds that will need this kind of freight. Humain and DataVolt are building the first 100 MW of a planned 1.5 GW campus at Neom’s Oxagon. Al Moammar Information Systems is investing USD 1.2 bn to expand its data center capacity to 192 MW. Go Telecom has also awarded a SAR 185.9 mn contract to install Dell computing systems with Nvidia GPUs for a new AI cloud facility.
Bonded by the sea
DP World is adding warehouse space inside the customs perimeter of its Caribbean port. Dubai-based ports operator DP World has finished the first phase of construction on Warehouse 8 at its economic zone in Caucedo, Dominican Republic, according to a press release. Once fully built, the warehouse will offer 57k sqm of storage and distribution space for manufacturers, logistics providers, and distributors serving the Caribbean and the Americas. DP World expects it to create 300-500 jobs as occupancy grows.
Cargo moves from berth to warehouse without leaving customs: The economic zone shares a customs perimeter with the Port of Caucedo. Goods can move between the port, storage, and distribution inside a single customs-controlled area, with customs services available around the clock.
The warehouse is one piece of a wider port expansion: DP World and the Dominican government are set to invest a further USD 100 mn in Caucedo’s warehousing and logistics infrastructure. That adds to the more than USD 700 mn DP World has put into the port since 2003. The wider expansion aims to raise annual container-handling capacity from 2.5 mn TEUs to about 3.1 mn TEUs and open 225 hectares for development. DP World estimates it could attract USD 3.9 bn in FDI and support USD 4 bn in new manufacturing output.
Qatari diesel is back on the spot market after an eight-month gap. Qatar Energy is offering up to 54k tons of gasoil and gas-to-liquids (GTL) diesel for loading at Ras Laffan between 22 and 29 November, Reuters reports, citing a tender document. QatarEnergy normally sells these products through monthly spot tenders. Its last one, in late February, was a single GTL diesel cargo for loading in mid-March. The new offer closed on 3 November. It covers 14k tons of 2.5k ppm sulfur gasoil and up to 40k tons of GTL diesel, which buyers can load as one cargo.
Buyers still carry the shipping risk through Hormuz: The cargo is sold freeon board at Ras Laffan, inside the Gulf, so buyers arrange their own shipping through the strait. Shell has said its ability to ship products from its Pearl GTL plant depends on regional security, including safe passage through Hormuz. Middle East diesel and gasoline shipments were running at 58% of prewar volumes in early October, JPMorgan analysts estimated, as we reported.
The tender follows Shell’s partial restart of Pearl GTL: Shell partially restarted Pearl, the world’s largest GTL plant, in early October. That came six months after one of its two trains was damaged in March. QatarEnergy has since resumed some contracted naphtha deliveries and offered up to 50k tons of naphtha, including Pearl GTL grade, on the spot market. Repairs to Train 2 are expected to finish in 1Q 2027, bringing Pearl back to its full capacity of 140k boe/d, a Shell spokesperson said.
#1- India wants US cargoes under its Qatar LNG contract: India’s Petronet LNG is in talks with QatarEnergy to source part of its 7.5 mn tons a year from the US. The timing is the sticking point. Petronet’s renewed contract starts in 2028, two years before QatarEnergy’s first Woodside’s Louisiana LNG project is due, and three years before Cheniere’s.
#2- Adnoc weighs a storage exit: India’s Adani Group is among the suitors for Dutch terminal operator VTTI in a potential agreement that could value the whole company at around EUR 3 bn. Adnoc may sell its entire 10% stake, while Vitol and IFM Investors, which own 45% each, could also sell down.
#3- GCC rail agreement heads for signature: Gulf transport ministries are expected to sign the rail connectivity agreement in Bahrain on 8 November. The planned 2.1k-km network would run from Kuwait to Muscat, with trains due to start running by end-2030.
#4- Saudi AI Cloud contract awaits signature: Go Telecom selected Total Technical Triangle Company for a SAR 185.9 mn contract to supply and install the computing equipment for a Saudi AI cloud. The one-year project would let Go rent computing capacity to government and corporate customers.
PENDING
#1- Still open from last week — Jeddah’s Al Khumrah logistics zone: Developers, logistics operators, and shipping companies have until 20 November to submit expressions of interest to develop and operate the 2.4 mn sqm site.
DEALS + LAUNCHES
#1- Adnoc gives Ruwais Diyab the go-ahead. Adnoc took a final investment decision on its first large-scale unconventional gas development. The project is expected to produce 345 mn cbf of raw gas a day from 2029 for 25 years.
#2- XRG agrees to buy into Australian LNG: Adnoc’s international investment arm agreed to buy Shell’s 16.7% stake in Australia’s North West Shelf project for USD 1.4 bn, plus a payment tied to project milestones. The agreement gives XRG access to about 2.4 mn tons of annual liquefaction capacity on a route to Asian buyers that avoids Hormuz.
#3- Qatar and Brookfield back a UK data center with power already secured: QIA’s AI arm Qai and Brookfield agreed to invest GBP 2.5 bn in a data center at Drax’s power station in northern England. Using the station’s existing grid connection, the first phase could bring up to 100 MW online by 1Q 2028.
#4- DP World links Chinese exporters to two of its African ports: The Dubai-based operator will start a weekly shipping service in late November connecting Shanghai, Ningbo, and Nansha with Dar es Salaam and Maputo via Malaysia and Singapore. DP World operates the Tanzanian terminal and is backing a USD 2 bn expansion at the Mozambican port.
#5- Acwa and EIG set up a US power venture: Saudi Arabia's Acwa and US investor EIG signed definitive agreements to form Plenum Power, targeting about USD 4 bn in initial equity commitments. The acquisition will be the main route in, alongside new builds and upgrades across conventional power, renewables, and storage.
#6- Aramco closes its Humain investment: Aramco completed its purchase of 49% of Saudi AI company Humain, contributing USD 2.6 bn and leaving PIF with 51%.
#7- Adia backs a USD 1.4 bn aircraft-leasing platform: Adia, Avolon, and I Squared Capital are setting up Constellation Aviation with 22 Avolon aircraft already leased to 17 airlines. The USD 1.4 bn is the fleet’s market value.
#8- Edge’s investment arm agrees to take control of Marix: Strategic Development Fund agreed to raise its minority holding in the Emirati builder of uncrewed surface vessels to a majority stake.
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