Canada to UAE: No shovel-ready projects for USD 50 bn investments

] WATCH THIS SPACE- None of the USD 50 bn in investments the UAE committed to Canada last year has moved yet. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s own Major Projects Office (MPO) told a visiting UAE delegation mid-June that Canada has no shovel-ready projects to deploy capital into, the Financial Times reports, citing three officials it says are familiar with the matter.

Even a USD 1 bn critical minerals agreement Carney said in November was “in the process of being finalized” still hasn’t materialized. It’s not a UAE-specific issue — former Quebec premier Jean Charest, who co-chairs the UAE-Canada Business Council, says the MPO is giving the exact same answer to everyone right now: “we’re not ready.”

Abu Dhabi’s line: A UAE official pushed back on the delay framing, telling the salmon-colored paper the investments are simply moving through standard due diligence — the review and planning phase any foreign investment goes through before deployment. The official added that the two sides remain closely engaged “on all levels,” calling the relationship one of the most important partnerships globally.

Where the UAE might actually plug in: Carney recently announced a fresh slate of projects meant to catalyze well over USD 141 bn in new investment — including a proposed 1 mn bbl / d pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia’s west coast that currently has no private backers. Charest says the UAE delegation has specifically “raised interest” in the pipeline and is broadly circling Canada’s energy sector.

What to watch: Carney is under pressure to sell “shovel-ready” at the upcoming Toronto investor summit in September, which aims to generate USD 1 tn in total investment over five years. Also: Carney has ordered his staff to finalize a UAE-Canada trade agreement he wants signed this month — a sign he’s still pushing to move the relationship forward even as the investment side stalls.

Oil watch

Aramco slashed Arab Light crude’s selling price for Asian buyers in August by the largest margin in 26 years, Bloomberg reports, citing a price list. The company cut the price by USD 11 / bbl to a USD 1.5 reduction to the regional benchmark, exceeding the USD 8 / bbl cut analysts expected.

China placed orders for at least 26 mn bbl for delivery in July or August from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Iraq via tenders and one-off purchases from trading firms, the Financial Times reports, citing data from Argus. Beijing seeks to replenish domestic stocks — depleted during the regional war — that may have fallen to around 1 mn bbl / d in May and June. Beijing intentionally chose not to replace its missing Gulf oil with alternatives from elsewhere, forestalling fears of surging global prices.

The return of Beijing to Middle Eastern crude markets is a bullish signal, S&P director of oil trading research Zhuwei Wang told the FT. That said, a major rebound in Chinese crude oil purchases depends on Beijing lifting informal export restrictions on refined products like gasoline and jet fuel, Argus’ head of Asia crude pricing Fabian Ng says. These controls — put in place to protect domestic supply during the Iran war — cap the amount of raw crude China can currently import.

QatarEnergy halved its scheduled LNG deliveries to Bangladesh for 2026, Reuters reports, citing Petrobangla acting chairman Abdul Mannan. The move is pushing Dhaka to seek replacement volumes through additional sport purchases and government-to-government supply agreements. Qatar was Bangladesh’s largest LNG supplier last year — providing almost 4.2 mn tons of the nearly 7 mn tons the country imported.

The shortfall reflects the lasting Hormuz disruption. No Ras Laffan-loaded cargo has reached Bangladesh since the war began around five months ago, despite 19 Qatari cargoes arriving under long-term contracts earlier this year. It has instead imported 35 sport cargoes since March, while at least 14 LNG cargoes loaded at Ras Laffan have exited Hormuz without reaching Bangladesh.

Data point

Dubai residential sales hit AED 221.3 bn on nearly 79.2k transactions in 1H 2026 — a large market, but cooler than 2025, according to Cavendish Maxwell insights published in a press release. Transaction volumes are down just under 14% y-o-y and sales values fell 15.7%.

June signaled resilience: Residential transactions rose nearly 30% m-o-m to 12.3k, worth AED 25.17 bn, partly on delayed post-Eid activity. Off-plan continued to carry the market, accounting for 76% of June transactions and AED 17.6 bn in sales.

Luxury residences still running hotter than broader market: Dubai logged a record 296 homes worth more than USD 10 mn in 1H, with the luxury transaction value rising 14% y-o-y to USD 5.1 bn, according to a Knight Frank report (pdf). But timing matters — many of those agreements were closed before the regional conflict and were registered later, meaning the real test for prime demand may come after summer.