Strike, rebuild, repeat

Good morning, friends. Every time something in the Gulf gets hit, the answer is the same: build another way around, and then find someone to pay for it.

An Adnoc Logistics and Services vessel was struck and damaged in an attack in the Arabian Gulf yesterday, the company said in a statement relayed by state news agency Wam. It happened within UAE territorial waters, and Adnoc didn’t say who was behind it.

Saudi Arabia’s Hormuz bypass took a hit too: The East-West oil pipeline was struck in the Medina region on Monday, causing a limited fire but leaving operations unaffected, according to an energy ministry statement that didn’t identify who was behind it. The line was shut for several days in September after drone attacks Saudi Arabia blamed on Iraqi militias, and Aramco rerouted more exports through its east coast terminals while it was down.

The builders aren’t slowing down: DP World is fast-tracking its two new Fujairah terminals, Arabian Business reports, citing chief executive Ahmad Yousef Al Hassan. Operations are now targeted to start in 18-24 months, down from 24-30 months when the project was announced in July, and the two terminals now have a price: AED 2.5 bn, lifting DP World’s UAE container capacity to nearly 22 mn TEUs from 19.4 mn. Al Hassan said Fujairah isn’t a “replacement or back-up” for Jebel Ali, but more optionality.

Which brings us to the “find someone to pay for it” part, and our Lede. Gulf sovereign wealth funds may have to pay for the region’s next round of industrial infrastructure, with foreign investors wary of war risk, Dawud Al Ansari of the Shaheen Institute for Strategy and Development argues. His pick for the money is green steel and ammonia at the ports and plants the Gulf already has, and analysts tell us foreign money is still going into Gulf oil and gas.