Good morning, friends — we have a lot to celebrate today at EnterpriseHQ. EnterpriseAM Logistics is now EnterpriseAM Infrastructure. For three years, our Logistics edition has tracked how goods move through the region, from the Red Sea attacks that impacted Suez Canal traffic to the near-shutdown of Hormuz. We covered Syria’s overland corridors closing and reopening, Gulf ports absorbing redirected cargo, and what all of it cost the businesses caught in between.
Over the past few months, we’ve been asking a bigger question: what does someone who builds, finances, or depends on the region’s infrastructure need from us every morning? The Gulf is entering a decade of financing ports, pipelines, data centers, and industrial zones all at once, often off the same sovereign balance sheets. A port deal and a data-center deal are increasingly the same story: who’s paying, who controls the asset, and whether it holds up when it’s tested. Covering them in separate lanes means missing how the money and the control move together.
So we’re widening the lens across five categories. Commercial Infrastructure covers ports, free zones, rail, aviation, and the corridors that connect them. Energy Infrastructure looks at the pipelines, LNG, refineries, storage, and bunkering that keep the region running. Digital Infrastructure keeps an eye on data-center buildouts, fiber, the cloud, and satellites. Reserve Infrastructure covers stockpiles, food security, and backup networks — the infrastructure built to keep working when everything else doesn’t. And Social Infrastructure covers hospitals, schools, and housing, for what they demand of the systems around them. Whatever the category, every story we report answers three questions. Who builds it, finances it, and makes money from it? Is it built to hold? And what else depends on it — the port a rail line feeds, the grid a data center draws on?
Each issue has been rebuilt around these pillars. Every morning, The Lede gives you our point of view on the single most important thing of the day, and What We’re Tracking follows the projects still in progress, with the next milestone worth watching on each. Every Thursday, The Pipeline — our running tracker of the region’s megaprojects, from announced to funded, awarded, and under construction — tells you what moved that week. And once a month, Opinion takes a story already making the rounds and says plainly where we think the framing is wrong. You’ll also find The Stress Test, The Chokepoint, and The Corridor, which we’ll explain as they earn their place.
Today’s Lede puts all of it into practice: Saudi Arabia’s biggest new gas field is being built for the Kingdom’s power plants, not for export, and the first thing Jafurah sends abroad will be crude.
I want to thank EnterpriseAM Infrastructure’s editor, Farah Rafik, for pouring her soul into this relaunch — it couldn’t have happened without her. Another huge thank-you to the wider team, Omar Gouda, Youssef Ibrahim, and Marwan Ahmed, for the reporting and the months of work put into this new edition. And to our readers who’ve opened us every morning since the Logistics days, we hope you enjoy the new Infrastructure and everything we have in store for you in the weeks and months to come.
- Zainab
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Is Saudi Arabia building its biggest new gas field to export? Not for now, analysts tell EnterpriseAM: Saudi power plants and industry can absorb most of the new gas. The gas also lets Saudi Arabia sell crude it now burns for power. to be sold abroad: at peak, the program is expected to displace about 500k bbl/d of crude, Aramco has said, Reuters reported.
Gas exports are a later question, and the likelier exit is the Red Sea, outside Hormuz. Saudi Arabia has no LNG export terminal or cross-border gas export pipeline today. A modular terminal at Yanbu could be delivered within three to five years of an investment decision, Kate Dourian, a board member at the Energy Institute’s Middle East branch, tells us.
Jafurah is the supply end of that chain: Aramco began production in December 2025 and is targeting 2 bn cf/d of sales gas by 2030, alongside substantial volumes of ethane and gas liquids, as part of an expansion that could raise its sales gas production capacity by around 80% from 2021 levels. It expects the expansion to add USD 12-15 bn in annual cashflow by 2030.
Domestic demand first
Domestic demand is expected to absorb much of the additional gas: The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects Saudi Arabia’s gas output to expand by almost 40 bcm between 2024 and 2030, while gas-to-power demand is forecast to grow by more than 40% by 2030, according to a 2025 IEA analysis (pdf). The additional gas is expected to support the shift away from oil-fired power generation and feed industrial expansion, and new AI and data center developments will add to electricity demand.
Analysts disagree on how much gas will be left over: Wood Mackenzie estimates Saudi Arabia could eventually have as much as 50 bcm of spare gas a year if production reaches 180 bcm. “This is unlikely to generate a substantial surplus given how much gas is required to displace oil from the power generation sector, and the scale of industrial growth in the Kingdom. Saudi Arabia has a huge demand capacity to absorb extra gas volumes,” Jamie Ingram, managing editor at Middle East Economic Survey (MEES), tells us.
Jafurah alone wouldn’t replace the oil still burned for power: Saudi power plants generated roughly 300 TWh from natural gas in 2025, against about 150 TWh from oil and 20 TWh from renewables, Anne-Sophie Corbeau, global research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, tells us. Even without additional industrial and data center demand, Jafurah’s planned production wouldn’t be enough to replace the remaining oil-fired generation, she says, so Saudi Arabia would need other gas developments alongside renewables to complete the transition.
Crude freed for export
Saudi Arabia is already working to stop burning its exports: Its Liquid Fuel Displacement Program aims to replace more than 1 mn bbl/d of liquid fuels across electricity generation, desalination, manufacturing, and agriculture by 2030, with investment going into gas-fired power plants, fuel conversions, and renewables. Aramco’s expanding gas network is meant to supply customers that used to rely on oil, and every barrel of crude displaced from domestic consumption is potentially available for export.
Power generation is the best first use of the new gas: Combined-cycle gas plants can run at up to 60% efficiency, against about 30% for crude-fired plants, Rystad Energy says, and they supply cheaper electricity to the industries Riyadh is trying to develop. That makes domestic power the most economically attractive immediate use of additional gas, ahead of new LNG export infrastructure, Ingram argues.
Aramco can now produce gas without producing crude, which helped during the conflict. Saudi Arabia historically relied heavily on associated gas produced alongside crude oil, Dourian says. “The development of non-associated gas fields such as Jafurah gives Aramco greater flexibility because gas output is no longer so closely tied to crude production.” That mattered when Saudi Arabia curtailed oil production during the regional conflict. “Non-associated gas production has helped limit the impact on domestic gas supplies,” Dourian adds.
From field to factory
Aramco is spending USD 8.8 bn to move the gas. Phase III of its Master Gas System adds 3.1 bn cf/d of transmission capacity by 2028 through roughly 4k km of pipelines and 17 gas compression trains, meant to carry additional supply to power plants and industrial customers across the Kingdom as Jafurah and other gas developments ramp up.
Contractors are building Jafurah in phases: A Hyundai Engineering-Hyundai E&C consortium has completed the first phase of its gas-processing facilities under a USD 1.6 bn contract and is working on phase two under a USD 2.3 bn award. EPC work for phase four has begun, and contractors have submitted bids for phase five. The Fadhili Gas Plant expansion, another major part of Aramco’s gas program, is scheduled for completion in 2027.
Pipelines and customers have to grow together, Dourian says. Phase III covers much of the transmission capacity the current plan requires, and growth after 2030 could need a fourth expansion alongside additional processing and liquids-handling facilities. The harder part is coordinating upstream development, transmission capacity, and new industrial customers so that gas reaches demand centers as it becomes available. “I would expect midstream capacity and the timing of downstream projects to become increasingly important considerations as production expands, rather than assuming that the availability of gas reserves will be the main constraint,” Dourian says.
Who owns the midstream
Aramco has sold investors a stake in Jafurah’s gas processing and kept control. It closed a USD 11 bn lease-and-leaseback last year. Jafurah Midstream Gas Company holds the development and operating rights to the Jafurah gas plant and the Riyas NGL fractionation facility and leases them back to Aramco for 20 years, with a BlackRock GIP-led consortium holding 49% and Aramco holding 51% and operational control. Aramco also plans to turn its gas business into a standalone division and is weighing a minority listing. The division would cover domestic operations and international LNG, and Bloomberg reported that Evercore is advising on a structure that could value the business above USD 100 bn.
The neighbors’ head start
Aramco is building an LNG business with other countries’ gas before it has substantial domestic volumes to export. It has invested USD 500 mn in MidOcean Energy, signed long-term offtake agreements covering US LNG projects — including 1 mtpa from Commonwealth LNG in Louisiana, with an option to double that volume — and outlined an ambition to market 20 mtpa of LNG globally, with 4.5 mtpa in progress as of January. That experience could eventually support a Saudi export business if domestic production creates a surplus, Ingram says.
Adnoc and QatarEnergy already have the infrastructure and customers Saudi Arabia would need to compete with. Adnoc’s 9.6 mtpa Ruwais LNG project has committed more than 90% of planned capacity under long-term arrangements, with its first trains expected online in 2H 2028. QatarEnergy is targeting 142 mtpa of LNG capacity by 2030 through its North Field expansion, although regional conflict has damaged existing facilities and disrupted the expansion schedule. Saudi Arabia could build an export business, but it would enter a market where neighboring producers already have a head start in liquefaction, customers, and long-term contracts.
Saudi industry can compete with those neighbors before Saudi Arabia exports a cargo. Jafurah is expected to produce 420 mn cf/d of ethane and around 630k b/d of natural gas liquids and condensate by 2030, adding feedstock for petrochemicals and other industries alongside the additional sales gas. Saudi manufacturers get more access to energy and feedstock while Aramco frees up crude for export, which could strengthen their position against UAE and Qatari industries long before the first Saudi LNG cargo.
An exit outside Hormuz
Saudi Arabia would never match Qatar’s scale, but it could offer a route outside Hormuz, Ingram says. “Saudi Arabia would never be an exporter on the scale of Qatar, but what Saudi Arabia could potentially provide would be export capability outside the Strait of Hormuz on the Red Sea,” he says. Rather than matching Qatar’s liquefaction capacity, Saudi Arabia could compete by providing an alternative supply route to European buyers, he adds.
The modular terminal would give Saudi Arabia access to global markets without committing immediately to a large conventional LNG complex, Dourian says. Regional pipelines could require less capital, depending on their routes, but would offer less flexibility in reaching different customers, she adds.
Why this matters: Jafurah’s most immediate export payoff is the crude it frees up, which will put the gas division's international LNG ambitions ahead of its domestic export capacity, even as Aramco builds a business that could be valued above USD 100 bn.
QatarEnergy will buy US LNG that never has to cross Hormuz, but the first deliveries are years away. The firm signed two long-term sale and purchase agreements with Cheniere to buy up to 4 mn tons a year from the Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi terminals on the US Gulf Coast, according to a press release.
The price tracks US gas, and part of the volume depends on an expansion yet to be approved. Cheniere will supply 2 mn tons a year from each terminal on a free-on-board basis, so QatarEnergy arranges the shipping from the US terminals. The price is indexed to the US Henry Hub gas benchmark plus a fixed fee, and about 1 mn tons a year of the Sabine Pass volume depends on a final investment decision for the first phase of that terminal’s expansion, according to Cheniere.
More US volumes could follow, at a price. QatarEnergy is in advanced talks with US-based Venture Global for at least 3 mn tons annually, although the timeline and contract duration remain unclear, Reuters reports citing three people with knowledge of the negotiations. It’s also in talks with Australia’s Woodside for up to 3 mn tons annually from its Louisiana LNG project, potentially for 15-20 years. The two suppliers have the most uncommitted US capacity. Louisiana LNG is seeking liquefaction fees above USD 2.50/mmBtu, offering shorter contracts in return, two people told Reuters.
REMEMBER- QatarEnergy was in talks with the same three suppliers last month for around 2-3 mn tons a year through 2031, to cover commitments after the hit to Ras Laffan.
Spot cargoes until 2031
QatarEnergy is covering the gap with spot purchases: The company bought 33 US cargoes this year for customers in South Korea, Taiwan, Bangladesh, India, and Japan, against four last year. The cargoes were worth around USD 1 bn, by Reuters’ calculation, and were bought directly from Venture Global and from some of its customers. The shortfall goes beyond shipping: the damage to two of Ras Laffan’s 14 trains in March took some 12.8 mn tons a year of capacity offline for three to five years.
Its own US plant is only starting up. QatarEnergy holds a 70% stake in Texas’s Golden Pass LNG, which shipped its first cargo in April with only Train 1 running. The plant exported less than 0.2 bcf/d from April through June, against an eventual design capacity of 18 mn tons a year, according to the EIA.
The bypass swaps one chokepoint for one coastline. Sabine Pass, Louisiana LNG, and Venture Global’s plants are in Louisiana. Corpus Christi and Golden Pass are in Texas.
Gulf portfolios in US LNG
QatarEnergy is building a portfolio beyond its own production. The Cheniere volumes will “complement QatarEnergy’s existing LNG supplies” and “expand and diversify our global LNG portfolio,” Minister of State for Energy Affairs and QatarEnergy CEO Saad Al Kaabi said.
Adnoc and Aramco are doing the same: Adnoc’s international arm XRG holds equity in all five trains of Texas’s Rio Grande LNG, alongside a 20-year agreement to buy 1.9 mn tons a year from Train 4. Aramco signed a 20-year agreement for 1.2 mn tons a year from the same train, subject to FID at the time, and later a long-term agreement for 1 mn tons a year from Commonwealth LNG.
US LNG exports averaged 17.4 bcf/d in 1H 2026, up 23% y-o-y, as Venture Global’s Plaquemines plant ran at full capacity and Cheniere’s Corpus Christi expansion ramped up, according to the EIA. The Hormuz disruption cut off about 20% of global LNG supply in March, and US exports to Asia roughly doubled in 1H.
Both chokepoints again
Poland’s Orlen is due its first QatarEnergy cargo since supplies were suspended. The Al Kharsaah is due at Swinoujscie on 14 November after crossing Hormuz and Bab Al Mandab earlier this month. The force majeure is still in place, one of the sources said, and QatarEnergy isn’t yet promising deliveries. Orlen has been using its own LNG carrier fleet to lift replacement supply from US terminals.
The bottomline- QatarEnergy can’t use the agreements to cover today’s shortfall, since deliveries start in 2031. It looks to be securing a recurring supply for its future customer book instead of assembling volumes through successive spot purchases, and part of the Sabine Pass volume depends on Cheniere’s expansion decision, so its supply is tied to the seller’s growth
The Corridor follows the routes being built, or bought, around those chokepoints — by rail, road, pipe, or contract — and whether they actually carry anything.
Alexandria’s ports are handling more transit cargo, and three partners want to turn some of it into Egyptian exports. The Alexandria Port Authority (APA), Hassan Allam Utilities (HAU), and Al Tarek Capital Real Estate Asset Management signed an MoU to study setting up, developing, and operating a storage, re-export, and light-manufacturing hub on a 273k sqm plot in Dekheila Port’s western hinterland, according to separate statements (here and here, pdf). The land is set to join the port’s customs zone.
HAU and Al Tarek still need a final agreement and regulatory approvals before they can build and run the hub, HAU says. Transport Minister Kamel El Wazir directed the parties to hold meetings to sign a terms-and-conditions agreement and start work. Neither statement disclosed an investment figure, a construction date, land rights, or how the private partners will split financing and operating responsibilities. Who carries the development risk, and how the hub earns revenue, depends on those terms.
Bringing the plot under the port’s customs jurisdiction is the first of two steps. HAU says the plot is “intended to be incorporated into the port’s customs zone” and that the re-export and transit work needs approvals for freezone status or a similar framework. Read together, that points to two steps: bring the hinterland under the port’s customs jurisdiction, then secure a duty-suspension regime for the activities. The statement doesn’t spell that out, and it leaves open whether the whole plot or part of it gets the status.
Downstream of the transit surge
Container traffic through Alexandria and Dekheila rose14% to 2.59 mn TEUsin FY 2025/26, and transit containers jumped 74% to 553.4k TEUs. At Dekheila, transit containers handled by the Hutchison terminal rose to 88.9k TEUs from 24.4k a year earlier. A larger transit flow means more potential customers for the hub, though it isn’t clear from the transit numbers how much cargo will need storage, processing, or re-export instead of direct transshipment.
Red Sea disruptions pushed shippers towardMediterraneangateways, where extra storage could help absorb shifting flows. The jump in transit volumes came as shippers relied more on Alexandria’s ports amid disruptions at Red Sea ports. The partners haven’t disclosed the hub’s storage capacity, cargo throughput, or operating arrangements.
One link in a chain
Freezones already operate at Dekheila, including one approved for Berth 100 in July 2024. The Berth 100 terminal is designed to handle 1.5 mn TEUs a year under build-operate-transfer arrangements with an alliance of Hutchison, Cosco, CMA CGM, and MSC, and the cabinet approved an 840k sqm private freezone for the El Dekheila Container Terminal Company there. Venus Freezone also runs a grain storage facility of more than 103k sqm at the port.
APA’s own logistics zone is about four times the MoU plot: APA is developing a 273-feddan zone for value-added industries, with reclamation 62.7% complete through its first 153-feddan phase. That is about 1.15 mn sqm by our math, and neither APA nor HAU says whether the 273k sqm sits inside it.
IN CONTEXT- HAU brings a logistics track record. HAU Logistics, its platform with AP Moller Capital, launched in 2023 targeting c. USD 200 mn of investment in logistics, air freight, and warehousing. It runs the 270k sqm YANMU East Logistics Park in East Cairo in a joint venture with Agility.
THE BOTTOM LINE- The hub’s viability depends on securing the right customs regime and attracting cargo that needs processing, and until the terms-and-conditions agreement, the customs and freezone approvals, and the land terms are in place, neither is settled.
Aramco is aiming to double its international crude storage and wants access to government-owned strategic reserves abroad, particularly in Asia, Bloomberg reports, citing CEO Amin Nasser. Two of Saudi Arabia’s three main export corridors depend on a single pipeline, and stockpiles near customers would give Aramco a buffer if that line goes down again.
Aramco already keeps commercial stocks abroad: It holds inventories in Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, and Egypt’s Sidi Kerir hub. The government-controlled facilities it’s now targeting are much larger.
REMEMBER- Drone strikes knocked out the 7 mn bbl/d East-West pipeline, which carries crude from the Kingdom’s eastern fields to the Red Sea. The outage threatened exports through Yanbu and squeezed the Egyptian corridor running through Ain Sokhna and the Sumed pipeline to Sidi Kerir. Aramco was left leaning harder on Hormuz, the chokepoint the pipeline was built to bypass.
The Red Sea buffers
Yanbu had about a week of crude on hand: When the pipeline went offline, the Red Sea hub had an estimated five to seven days of export-ready crude, Reuters reported at the time. Inventories in Egypt gave Aramco another cushion, but neither could be refilled normally with the pipeline down.
Asian buyers still got crude, by way of Hormuz: Their cargoes moved through Ras Tanura instead, with tankers crossing Hormuz before transferring cargoes near Oman. That kept barrels flowing but put the risk back on a contested waterway.
Storage abroad buys time
Aramcorenewed its agreementwith Japan in November 2025 for access to 8.2 mn barrels of storage, putting Saudi crude close to Asian customers. Japan, in return, gets priority access to that oil in an emergency. The Kingdom has since pushed to expand its Japan-based stockpiles roughly tenfold. The host country gets supply security out of the arrangement, and Aramco gets a buffer whose use could be shaped by the host’s own needs.
Stored barrels still have to be replaced by sea: Once overseas inventories run down, Aramco needs tankers to refill them, and the Gulf’s existing workaround is already expensive. Ship-to-ship transfers can take five to six days for a full VLCC, and average global supertanker earnings hit a record USD 805k a day this month.
The Stress Test takes one piece of infrastructure and asks what happens when it’s actually tested; what it was built to withstand, what gave way, and who carries the cost.
Saudi Arabia wants self-navigating ships operating in its waters by the end of next year. Trials with shipbuilders and classification societies are nearing their final stages, Transport General Authority President Fawaz Al-Sahli told Al-Eqtisadiah. The project has been running since 2025. Riyadh is also looking to develop local ship-component manufacturing and autonomous-navigation capabilities, according to Al-Eqtisadiah. That could open a new market for local suppliers and maritime tech companies.
Binding global rules are still years away: The International Maritime Organization’s autonomous shipping code took effect on a voluntary basis in July 2026, and mandatory rules aren’t expected until 2032. The Kingdom’s target would put its first autonomous ships at sea several years before then.
XRG, Adnoc’s international investment arm, is in early talks to buy a stake in Eni’s Libyan oil and gas business, Reuters reports, citing two sources familiar with the matter. Negotiations are at an early stage with no certainty of an agreement. XRG’s need to grow outside the Gulf has become more pressing as the US-Iran conflict continues, one of the sources said.
XRG would be buying into a producer with a direct pipeline to Europe. Libya accounted for 162k bbl/d of oil equivalent of Eni’s production last year, about 10% of the group’s total, through its JV with Libya’s National Oil Corporation, Mellitah Oil & Gas.
That pipeline carries a fraction of its capacity: Libyan gas exports, all of which go to Italy through Greenstream, fell to 105 mmcf/d in 2025, the lowest in 22 years and just 11% of the 2007 record, Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reported in April.
Eni is working to lift supply: It started up its Sabratha compression project in June, adding about 800 mn cubic meters a year for domestic power and export through Greenstream. It also completed the Bouri Gas Utilization Project and is developing the offshore A&E Structures Project.
The agreement would add to a gas portfolio XRG is building beyond the Gulf. XRG aims to expand its LNG capacity to 20-25 mn tons a year by 2035. It agreed with Eni in June to take 32% each in three of YPF’s Vaca Muerta gas blocks, the upstream base of a USD 12.5 bn LNG project in Argentina, and are partners in Mozambique’s Area 4 floating LNG projects. XRG also holds stakes in Azerbaijan’s Absheron gas and Texas’s Rio Grande LNG.
Libya’s supply risk showed up the day the talks were reported: A pipeline valve from the Hamada and Tahara oilfields to Zawiya was shut, cutting production at both fields, Reuters reported. Libya remains the Mediterranean’s highest-risk gas supplier until it proves it can sustain production.
Going once
Jeddah’s Al Khumrah logistics zone is up for private development: The Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) has opened expressions of interest from private developers, logistics operators, and shipping companies to develop and operate the 2.4 mn sqm site, according to a post on X. Submissions close on 20 November. The site is meant to support storage, cargo distribution, and re-export, and Mawani has not disclosed an investment value, a concession structure, or a development timeline.
Al Khumrah is meant to sit where Jeddah’s sea, air, and rail freight meet: It would link Jeddah Islamic Port with King Abdullah Port, King Abdulaziz International Airport, and the Kingdom’s planned east-west railway network. Saudi Arabia is already developing a SAR 689 mn, 17-km freight corridor between Jeddah Islamic Port and Al Khumrah — expected to be completed by the end of 2028. The road is designed to accommodate more than 8k trucks daily and increase the port’s operational capacity by over 10%.
The warehouse market is holding up: Jeddah’s industrial and logistics occupancy remained above 90% in 2Q 2026, with rents rising 4.8%. In Al Khumrah itself, Aljazira Reit renewed three warehouse leases during the regional conflict, securing three- to five-year commitments at higher rents.
REMEMBER- Jeddah’s logistics buildout is already attracting capital. Mawani signed seven agreements worth SAR 1 bn in July to expand logistics facilities at Jeddah Islamic Port and Al Khumrah — including a JD Logistics project focused on digital logistics infrastructure.
Double or nothing
Folk Maritime is keeping its target to double its business within three years. The PIF-owned carrier plans to grow by buying secondhand vessels, chartering more ships, and working with partners, with newbuild orders on the table toward the end of that period, CEO Poul Hestbaek told Asharq Business. The goal is to rank among the region’s three largest operators in its segment.
Customers are absorbing most of the added costs through higher freight rates: Marine ins. premiums are running at 10-15 times normal levels due to the Hormuz and Bab Al Mandab risks, and bunker fuel has at times reached three times its usual price, Hestbaek said. Security risks have forced Folk to slow its operations, leaving cargo volumes below forecast. Folk has also moved about 75% of its capacity to the Red Sea, up from roughly half before the conflict.
REMEMBER- Folk paused its expansion earlier this month, with overall costs up 30-40% and some India-Red Sea round trips stretched from about 20 to 30 days. Growth has “flattened out” until conditions normalize, Hestbaek told us.
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