For months, the conventional wisdom in many quarters has been that the war would be in our rearview mirror by September, prompting Gulf governments to release a flood of spending through state agencies and companies in bids to lure back tourists, reassure investors, and give the real estate market a nudge. Conferences would stage a furious comeback as scenesters and execs alike pine for the opportunity to swap business cards. Sports would gather fans in their masses, and other events would follow suit as schools fill with families that turned their backs on offers of admission in London, Cairo, and Mumbai.
We want to be optimistic, but with July mere hours from being over and hostilities accelerating all week long, the shape of our collective autumn is hazier today than it was at the start of the month. Look no further than Saudi air strikes in Iraq, a drone attack on LNG infrastructure in Egypt, the prospect of Riyadh intervening again in Yemen, a gathering maritime coalition that wants to secure the Red Sea, and a refugee crisis in the EU that might have been sparked by Morocco.
The latest sign that fall may be quieter than we’d all like: Formula 1 is making contingency plans to end its season in Europe if the year’s final two races in Qatar (November) and Abu Dhabi (December) can’t go ahead because of the war, Reuters quotes F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali as saying. F1 will make a decision by September, the wire service reports.
AND- The NBA will not play any preseason games in our part of the world, ESPN reports, the first time in four years it will have given us a pass.
There are a few hints of sunshine as we head into the weekend, though: Accor said it returned to year-on-year growth in Dubai this month even as some hotels remain closed. There might (maybe, potentially) be an early deal for Hamas to disarm, as we note in this morning’s War Watch, below. And we have for you tons of news of investment in infrastructure and energy on this exceptionally busy news morning. –Patrick
The recovery of India’s share of Gulf sovereign capital is narrower than headline figures suggest. Gulf sovereign investors invested USD 1.7 bn into the country in 1H 2026, accounting for around 3.1% of the record USD 53.9 bn deployed globally. That’s more than double what India claimed in 2025, both in absolute terms and as a share of the total — in all of last year, India reeled in USD 700 mn from sovereign investors, or about 1.2% of their total.
The one problem: Most of that came from a single investor, and the largest individual entry in the tracker is not a transaction at all. “The total is concentrated in [the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority] Adia, and the largest entry is an agreement to explore investments of up to USD 1 bn,” Daniel Brett, head of research and data at Global SWF tells EnterpriseAM. Adia’s commitments to India are split around 60% in infrastructure through the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) and 40% in a Kotak real estate fund. No other Gulf fund appears in the 1H 2026 data.
That agreement was announced in May, when Adia and NIIF said they would explore up to USD 1 bn of Indian infrastructure investment — one deliverable from a Modi-Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed summit that produced a USD 5 bn Abu Dhabi headline. What that means in practice is that the biggest single line in India’s best half-year since 2024 is itself a commitment from a summit that has yet to transform into a transaction.
PwC, which advises Gulf funds on these decisions from the other side of the table, sees it similarly. Laurent Depolla, partner at PwC Middle East, and Tarek Shoukri, the firm’s lead for global sovereign and principal investors, tell EnterpriseAM that the obvious explanation — Gulf money staying home to fund national transformation programs — “is certainly one factor.” But “we would not view that as the primary explanation for investment levels in India.”
What is and isn’t captured in the data
The 3.1% India accounts for should be read with some nuance. Global SWF captures publicly disclosed or credibly reported investments and commitments. Actual Gulf exposure to India is “probably understated,” Brett says, in undisclosed limited partner commitments, external manager mandates, separately managed accounts, as well as co-investments through subsidiaries and listed holdings that fall below disclosure thresholds.
Consider: The USD 1.7 bn figure doesn’t include the Emirates NBD’s USD 2.8 bn acquisition of a 60% stake in Mumbai-based lender RBI last month. DFM-listed Emirates NBD is controlled by the Investment Corporation of Dubai and Dubai Holding, both of them sovereign arms of Dubai.
The reverse applies too: Announced commitments can overstate immediate cash, because they may be drawn over years or remain subject to further agreement. The data, Brett says, is best read as “observable transaction and commitment activity, rather than a measure of cash physically transferred.”
No megadeal to absorb the cheques
“I would frame it as a deployability problem, not a lack of interest,” Brett says. India offers strong growth, he explains, but fewer opportunities that combine sovereign-scale ticket sizes with clear governance, predictable approvals, reliable counterparties, and a visible exit path. He calls 1H 2026 “a partial recovery, rather than a confirmed reacceleration,” considering the figures remain below the 5.2-6.3% share of sovereign investments India claimed from 2022-2024.
It’s not that India lacks size as a market — it’s that it has so far offered few transactions big enough to attract a Gulf sovereign. “India had no equivalent megadeal to the artificial intelligence and technology transactions that drew Gulf capital to the US,” Brett says, pointing to funding for Anthropic, xAI and SpaceX. Around half of what Gulf SWFs have deployed this year has gone to the US. China, at 17%, offered large private equity portfolios, secondary transactions, and Hong Kong listings. Meanwhile, the UK continued to offer deep private equity, credit, infrastructure, and real estate markets — along with established managers and familiar exit routes.
PwC’s Depolla and Shoukri agree with Brett on what India needs. Continuing to expand “the pipeline of large, investment-ready opportunities” matters, as does “a predictable and efficient investment environment” — regulatory clarity, ease of doing business, transaction execution and investment protection, they tell us. Investors weigh “regulatory predictability, execution risk, currency dynamics, and exit opportunities as part of their investment process.”
But a simple ranking frame misses a lot, Depolla and Shoukri say. “We do not believe Gulf sovereign wealth funds view these markets as competing in a simple ranking,” they say. “Each market plays a different role within a diversified global portfolio.” Instead, they say that funds allocate around long-term structural themes, rather than by geography. The US, for example, offers “scale, deep capital markets, and a strong innovation ecosystem,” while China gives “access to strategic sectors despite a more selective investment approach.” The UK comes into the picture with “mature institutional assets, infrastructure opportunities, and a well-established legal and financial framework.”
Political envelopes, not investable pipelines
The headline pledges that keep getting recycled as evidence of Gulf commitment to India need the same scrutiny.Saudi Arabia’s USD 100 bn figure dates to a general 2019 pledge made during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to New Delhi, not a discrete PIF commitment made in 2025. Public data doesn’t show anything indicating full deployment.
Qatar’s USD 10 bn pledge, announced in 2025 at the time of Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani’s trip to India, was a government-level ambition rather than a funded Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) vehicle with a deployment timetable. Again, there’s little public evidence that capital is being deployed.
Even the Adia-NIIF relationship is older than it looks. Adia committed USD 1 bn to NIIF in 2017, becoming the fund’s first institutional investor. The first fund is fully committed, but Adia's individual drawdown has never been disclosed.
“These headline numbers are best treated as political envelopes. They can remain open for years while governments and funds look for projects that meet sovereign investment standards,” Brett cautions.
Not all funds are stuck for the same reason
It’s more useful to look at the Gulf’s approach to India on a country-by-country basis than it is to frame it as a bloc — doing the latter risks obscuring three different problems. For the PIF, Saudi Arabia’s domestic Vision 2030 mandate competes directly with overseas deployment. For Adia and QIA, that explanation is far less persuasive, Brett says, as both remain global investors. Their constraints are transaction size, valuation, and the availability of a credible Indian partner.
Onshore presence will show the same split: Adia began operating in India’s GIFT City in October 2024, giving it an onshore base for holding and structuring Indian investments plus local regulatory and tax advantages. Saudi officials also discussed a PIF office there in 2023, but Brett has seen no confirmation it became operational. QIA has also said it would open an India office in 2025.
Adia’s head start hasn’t yet converted: “An office creates capacity; it does not create deals,” Brett says. The initial phase involves licensing, legal structuring, transfers of existing holdings, recruitment and relationship-building, after which private-market investments can take several quarters to reach approval and close, he adds.
Keep your eye on infrastructure
Depolla and Shoukri expect Gulf sovereign capital to concentrate over the next 12-24 months on Indian infrastructure, logistics, ports, airports, digital infrastructure, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, and AI and data infrastructure. They also see the funds looking beyond financial returns alone, toward partnerships supporting innovation, industrial growth, and resilient supply chains. “That makes India’s long-term proposition hard to ignore: its growth, demographics, digital transformation and infrastructure needs align with themes Gulf funds are pursuing globally,” they add.
BUT REMEMBER: Infrastructure remains exposed to land acquisition, transmission, tariff, and payment delays, “particularly in electricity,” Brett says. “Gulf funds are more comfortable when a major local group absorbs some of that execution risk. Reliance Industries is the clearest example. It offered scale, political access, established management and the capacity to take USD bn cheques, he tells us.
What’s next
A genuine reacceleration means clearing five specific thresholds, Brett suggests: more than USD 5 bn deployed annually, at least 5% of global Gulf allocation, participation from three or more Gulf funds, activity spread across several sectors, and most of the value coming from signed or completed deals rather than pledges. “1H 2026 does not yet meet that test,” he says.
The next data point to watch is whether 2H 2026 clears any of those thresholds, and whether a second Gulf fund beyond Adia shows up in the tracker before year-end.
The US-Iran war and the Saudi-Houthi conflict have each widened over the past 48 hours, with the fallout now reaching Egyptian soil for the first time even as a potential breakthrough on Gaza emerges.
The big geopolitical update of the morning: US President Donald Trump’sannouncementthat Hamas has agreed to a disarmament plan that will see the group cede control of Gaza in exchange for Israel also withdrawing from the strip. While neither Hamas nor Israel appear to have commented on or confirmed the plan, the agreement — brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey — is reportedly planned as a phased withdrawal and disarmament.
Iran and the US exchanged blows early yesterday, as Iran renewed its missile attacks on US forces in the Middle East before Washington responded with fresh strikes on the Islamic Republic, the US Central Command said. The US Treasury sanctioned two Iranian entities Wednesday for allegedly monetizing control of the Strait of Hormuz, escalating pressure on Tehran, the Department said. The move landed the same day Iran said it stopped three commercial vessels in the strait, part of a standoff sharpening as US naval forces work to keep the waterway open.
Saudi Arabia and the Houthis are also escalating their conflict: After the Yemeni group struck Saudi-linked tankers in the Red Sea and claimed hits on Aramco-linked facilities at Jizan and Yanbu, Saudi Arabia launched joint airstrikes with the US on Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq. The strikes, which killed at least 20 fighters and wounded 32, were in retaliation for drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities launched from the Arab country, Reuters reports. Regional officials believe the Houthis attacked Saudi Arabia from Iraqi territory, alongside Iraqi armed groups under IRGC supervision
Baghdad is less than thrilled with the strikes: After condemning the move as a violation of its sovereignty, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al Zaidi canceled a trip to Riyadh that had been scheduled for yesterday.
Now, Yemeni sources believe Saudi Arabia could be gearing up for a ground offensive in Central Yemen “to break the chokehold on its oil exports through the southern Red Sea,” the Guardian reports. The Houthis declared a blockade on Saudi shipping nearly two weeks ago.
Riyadh’s institutional answer is a coalition: Saudi Arabia has proposed leading a multinational alliance to protect Red Sea shipping from attacks by the Houthis, Reuters reports, citing unnamed sources. More than a dozen countries — including Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Turkey, and Pakistan — voiced support for the initiative. Pakistan is broadly expected to support Saudi defense initiatives, particularly after Riyadh has rolled over its USD 5 bn deposit in Pakistan’s central bank for three years.
Egypt’s support for the maritime coalition came as its Damietta Port on the Mediterranean was struck by a drone on Wednesday evening, hitting the US-owned regasification vessel Energos Winter and sparking a fire that then spread to a gas storage vessel connected to it, Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly said at his weekly presser yesterday. This was the first such attack on Egypt since the war began. The vessel — which was responsible for 6-10% of Egypt’s domestic natural gas needs — is currently offline but the energy system is “unaffected,” with Aqaba co-charter flows in place as a backup, Madbouly said. There’s still no official assessment of how long the vessel will be out of service.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, although Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchiblamed Israel, suggesting this was “false-flag operations designed to undermine regional peace.”
The attack on Damietta is a bit baffling. Egypt’s Ain Sokhna Port has a higher concentration of gas import infrastructure with three regasification vessels docked there, and it’s located on the Red Sea where Iran and the Houthis previously launched drone attacks on ships and Saudi facilities.
Gulf states, frustrated with the limits of US power, are increasingly looking east. Several are testing whether China will use its leverage over Tehran — as both Iran’s biggest trading partner and a major buyer of Crude — to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and Bab Al Mandeb. The results so far appear underwhelming, as China has declined to publicly challenge Iran’s threats to shipping, has said it won’t use force to reopen Hormuz, and has directly engaged with the Houthis to arrange for its own tankers to pass through the southern Red Sea.
On our region’s western flank, a separate crisis is emerging: Thousands of Moroccans swam into Spain’s enclave of Ceuta yesterday, prompting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to float suspending Spain from the Schengen area, the Financial Times reports. Some analysts have suggested the mass migration was enabled — or at least allowed — by Moroccan authorities as “retaliation due to improving Spain-Algeria relations.”
Moody’s has cut its outlook for MENA sovereign credit to negative from stable, extending region-wide the alarm it first rang in April, when it moved only Bahrain and Iraq to negative. The trigger is the same one that has dominated our coverage since late February: The war has choked shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to a trickle, forcing nearly every Gulf exporter to cut production, raising the import bills for energy importers, and pushing the region toward a real GDP contraction in 2026. It’s a sharp reversal from the acceleration that several institutions had penciled in at the start of the year.
Qatar and Kuwait keep stable outlooks despite fiscal deterioration — their reserves are deep enough to take the hit. Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi have so far come out relatively insulated: Their pipelines partly bypass the strait, so higher oil prices partially offset lower volumes. Oman, whose ports sit east of the chokepoint, is the only Gulf country to have seen little impact on its exports.
Bahrain and Iraq, the two Moody’s had flagged in April, remain the most exposed. Both entered the war with weak fiscal starting positions, and each has seen huge drops in foreign-currency reserves. Moody’s expects the GCC to backstop Bahrain if needed, pointing to the USD 5.4 bn currency swap line the UAE extended in early April as a template, but Iraq has no such safety net. Worse, Iraq relies on hydrocarbons for half its GDP and 90% of government revenues, with no meaningful export route that bypasses the Strait.
Looking ahead, the war is hammering the sectors on which the Gulf has been building its post-hydrocarbon economy, including aviation, hospitality, retail, logistics, real estate. The UAE and Qatar have already seen tourism arrivals drop sharply, and Moody’s says the shock has kicked off a long-anticipated correction in Dubai’s property market after a five-year boom.
The impact is indirect but just as real for energy importers. Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey all face higher energy import bills, weaker external demand, and more punishing global financing. Both Turkey and Egypt saw foreign capital flight in the first months of the war, but Turkey’s exposure runs deeper: Its central bank drew heavily from foreign reserves to defend the TRY and control inflation rates. Egypt’s central bank has kept its thumb off the sale.
What’s next: Moody’s now sees a slow, bumpy road to any durable settlement, with renewed Houthi threats to Red Sea shipping raising the risk that even Saudi Arabia's alternative route gets compromised. The agency doesn’t expect Hormuz flows back to pre-conflict levels before early 2027, and warns that the longer US-Iran conflict festers, the greater the danger it durably dents the Gulf’s appeal as a destination for capital, talent, and tourism.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Ali Al Zaidiwrapped a visit to Turkeywith pledges of further cooperation in water and energy and a spate of MoUs spanning logistics, energy, and education. “Our aim now is to sign a comprehensive energy cooperation agreement as soon as possible that will benefit both sides,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a presser earlier this week.
Al Zaidi still left Ankara without a sealed agreement on crude pipeline flows through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline — a sticking point in Iraqi-Turkish relations for the last few years despite a strengthening multi-sector cooperation during the tenure of the former prime minister.
BACKGROUND- A 53-year-old agreement governing crude flows through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline expired last Monday without a replacement. The pipeline, which had been shut for a few years amid commercial disputes, resumed operations earlier this year. The pipeline is also Iraq’s main Hormuz bypass, allowing the country to export some 250k-350k of bb / d — almost 10% of its pre-war export levels.
Still, Turkey showed signs it may be serious about investing in Iraq’s energy sector. Turkey’s state oil company Turkish Petroleum Corporation signed an agreement to take up a 15% stake in BP Energy Company of Kirkuk Limited (BP ECKL), the vehicle redeveloping major oil fields at Kirkuk in north Iraq. The Turkish President also said his government is eying an agreement to import some 1 mn bb / d of Iraqi crude.
Riyadh’s largest urban development is getting a leadership shuffle. King Salman Park Foundation CEO George Tanasijevich (Linkedin) is leaving the organization, people familiar with the matter tell EnterpriseAM. Chief Development Officer Dale Chadwick has been named incoming CEO, our sources say. Chadwick joined the foundation in 2022, having previously overseen design and construction on integrated resorts including Marina Bay Sands and the Venetian Macau as VP for Asia at Venetian Cotai Limited.
The change comes as Saudi’s gigaproject ecosystem shifts focus toward assets with direct commercial returns, rather than purely quality-of-life infrastructure. State-linked developers have increasingly prioritized mixed-use and hospitality components with clearer revenue models as fiscal pressure builds on the Kingdom’s project pipeline.
There was no real slowdown in dealmaking activity this week even as the conflict in the Gulf heated up again. Investment in energy and infrastructure leads the column, with international suitors reportedly kicking the tires on BP’s Egyptian gas assets, the Arab Energy Fund eyeing offshore and oilfield services outfit Maridive, and the UAE’s TAQA having just closed the largest blue bond ever in EMEA.
UP FIRST- At least four bidders are looking at BP’s West Nile Delta natural gas assets in Egypt as the British energy major presses ahead with plans to streamline its portfolio and cut debt, Reuters reports. Among those expected to make offers by the end of this week are private equity firm Carlyle Group, Energean, Dragon Oil, and Artemis Energy in the bidding process. BP produces about 60% of Egypt’s natural gas.
BACKGROUND- UK-based Energean tried last year to sell its assets in Egypt to Carlyle, which wanted to build an upstream platform with assets in Egypt, Croatia, and Italy, but the transaction fell apart on regulatory concerns. Dragon Oil is already present in Egypt through Gupco, and Energean also knows Egypt’s geology. BP is working through asset sales that could be worth as much as USD 20 bn by 2027.
Speaking of oil and gas: The Arab Energy Fund wants a fifth of Maridive. The Riyadh-based multilateral is readying a non-binding offer for 20% of EGX-listed Maridive & Oil Services at USD 0.65-0.72 per share, according to a regulatory filing (pdf). At the top end, that’s a more than 46% premium to the three-month average close and over 57% against the six-month.
IN CONTEXT- Maridive is a longtime player in the offshore industry, though it has in recent years lost luster to Egyptian upstart Ades, which is now owned by PIF.
TAQA has sold the largest blue bond ever issued in the EMEA region — a USD 750 mn, five-year private placement that’s also the largest blue bond issued globally by an integrated power and water utility, per a company statement. Standard Chartered was the sole placement agent. TAQA has now sold USD 2.6 bn in green- and blue-labelled bonds since 2023 and has put nearly USD 10 bn into energy-transition projects since 2021.
REMEMBER- Energy security and infrastructure are going to be big investment themes over the coming decade as the Arab world looks to build in redundancy and resilience after the US-Iran war, which has included Iranian attacks on energy infrastructure as well as desalination, water distribution, and wastewater treatment plants.
BACK TO EGYPT- The Madbouly government unlocked about USD 1.8 bn from the IMF yesterday after clearing the next-to-last review of its USD 8 bn program — USD 1.5 bn immediately available under the Extended Fund Facility, plus USD 272 mn under the separate Resilience and Sustainability Facility, Bloomberg reports. The board signed off after judging Egypt had made sufficient progress on selling state assets, saying Cairo had met the war “in a stronger macroeconomic position than during previous episodes of external stress.”
Carry traders have gotten the two things they wanted: Fresh hard currency on top of some EUR 1.5 bn the European Commission disbursed this month and continued signs that the EGP is moving in tandem with the big developments in the war, suggesting the central bank continues to keep its thumb off the scale.
MEANWHILE- S&P Dow Jones’ consultation on demoting Egypt from Emerging to Frontier status closes today, per a notice (pdf). The index provider credits Egypt’s progress on repatriation, lifting the special measures it imposed in May 2023, but says market accessibility, capital mobility, and institutional stability still fall short of the “emerging” bar. A demotion would take place in September 2027; Egypt would be about 3.4% of the Frontier benchmark, against just 0.12% of the Emerging index.
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bought a 5% stake in Lucid Motors at the bottom of a bankruptcy scare, a regulatory filing shows. The stake purchase comes weeks after Lucid’s stock lost more than half its value in a single session on reports it had hired restructuring specialists AlixPartners. Lucid denied it was heading for bankruptcy.
Alwaleed holds about 5% of the company’s Class A shares with a stake worth c. USD 129.5 mn. Saudi’s Public Investment Fund holds just north of 45%.
Why it matters: PIF has put roughly USD 9.5 bn into Lucid since 2018, including a USD 550 mn convertible preferred placement in April and an USD 800 mn drawdown from a Saudi-backed facility since. Alwaleed’s stake is the first outside Saudi money into Lucid since the AlixPartners scare, which prompted speculation that PIF could cut Lucid loose as the fund focuses more on domestic opportunities.
What’s next: Lucid reports first-half results on 4 August — new CEO Silvio Napoli’s first earnings call, expected to address the production guidance suspended since May.
UAE sovereigns, lenders, and companies have sold USD 30.3 bn of USD- and EUR-denominated debt so far this year — up a third on the same stretch last year and USD 3.7 bn above the previous record, set six years ago, per Bloomberg. Emirates NBD, First Abu Dhabi Bank, RAK Bank, Burjeel Holdings and the emirate of Ajman have all tapped markets in recent months, most oversubscribed.
Why it matters: GCC bond and sukuk maturities are expected to climb to a USD 143.1 bn peak in 2029, according to Kamco Invest data cited by Khaleej Times — and UAE banks alone owe USD 88.9 bn, the single largest sector-country exposure anywhere in the region. Borrowers are locking in cheap funding now before that wall arrives or war-risk repricing catches up with them.
Azimut just became Turkey’s largest private asset manager — and reopened the question of whether Yapi Kredi itself is for sale. The Italian wealth manager agreed to buy Yapi Kredi’s portfolio management arm for TRY 16.4 bn (USD 346 mn), Bloomberg reports, folding Yapi Kredi Portfoy’s TRY 1.21 tn in assets as of June into Azimut’s existing TRY 575.7 bn Turkish book to create the country’s second-largest manager, trailing only state-run Ziraat.
How it’s priced: The deal prices Yapi Kredi Portfoy at 7x its expected 2026 net income and comes bundled with a 15-year exclusive distribution partnership, giving Azimut a shot at more than 18 mn Yapi Kredi banking clients. Turkey is now Azimut’s third-biggest market globally, the firm said.
IN CONTEXT- Koc Group-controlled Yapi Kredi has been sale bait before — Abu Dhabi-headquartered FABwalked away from an estimated USD 8 bn bid for Koc’s controlling stake in 2024 after the sides couldn’t agree on valuation. Selling its most profitable unit now, Istanbul analysts told Türkiye Today, narrows the pool of buyers who’d still want the bank without its asset-management crown jewel.
UAE-based fintech Epic Markets secured USD 10 mn in a pre-seed funding round from London-based investor Karatage, according to a press release. Founded earlier this year, the Dubai-based startup is building a multi-asset brokerage platform targeting retail customers with institutional-grade trade capabilities and smaller retail investors — sounding a lot like Egypt’s Thndr X, which has a license to trade the ADX and which recently received in-principle approval for Saudi Arabia.
ALSO WORTH KNOWING TODAY-
Dubai Investments finalized the buyout of Clemenceau Medical Center Dubai (CMC Dubai), bringing its total stake to 100% after acquiring the remaining 80%, according to a DFM disclosure (pdf).
Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) completed its full acquisition of Macquarie AirFinance (MAF) at an enterprise value of around USD 9 bn, according to a press release. The combined business now holds roughly 1k owned, managed, and committed aircraft worth USD 35 bn, making DAE the world’s third-largest aircraft lessor by fleet value and by number of owned and managed jets.
Fertiglobe is screening acquisitions in North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Western Australia, and the US as it looks beyond its core ammonia and urea business, CEO Ahmed El Hoshy told AGBI.
US automotive-tech supplier Gentex is opening a manufacturing plant in Morocco to sit closer to its European customers. The company disclosed the project (pdf) in its 2Q 2026 earnings call, saying it has signed a letter of intent, picked a site, and secured Moroccan government support. The facility will produce electrochromic mirrors and advanced electronic modules for vehicles built and sold in Europe, with production slated to begin in 2028.
The driver is supply-chain derisking: COO Neil Boehm said European customers increasingly require suppliers to manufacture in-region as they focus “on derisking their supply base.” Morocco fits the bill for Gentex, with proximity to Europe, an established auto industry, and strong transport links. Boehm doesn’t expect the move to lift operating expenses much, with core technologies still supplied from existing plants.
Exporting in the dark
Adnoc is running its LNG carriers dark again: An empty Adnoc L&S tanker slipped into the Arabian Gulf on Wednesday after crossing the Strait of Hormuz with its transponder switched off, Bloomberg reports. Satellite imagery places the tanker at Adnoc Gas’ Das Island export terminal earlier this week. Three more Adnoc-linked carriers went silent off the UAE’s east coast last Friday, likely queuing to load. Das Island — the UAE’s only LNG export plant, with a capacity of 6 mtpa — has been throttled by disruption. That’s part of what drove a 20% y-o-y drop in Adnoc Gas’ export and traded-liquids volumes in 1Q.
On the crude side of the equation, Adnoc is clearing barrels at a premium. The company sold at least 12 mn barrels of spot crude in its latest tender, Reuters reports. Buyers were predominantly Asian — China’s Unipec, PetroChina, and Sinochem each lined up significant buys for September and October delivery, while Indian and Japanese buyers also showed up.
Meanwhile, Qatar is plugging its own gaps with American gas. QatarEnergy has bought 33 spot US LNG cargoes this year for delivery to South Korea, Taiwan, Bangladesh, India, and Japan, Reuters reports. The purchases are meant to keep key customers supplied after the company extended its force majeure earlier this week.
A consortium of US and Saudi firms is advancing plans for a USD 5 bn refinery and export complex outside Hormuz, Reuters reports. The Mera Oil consortium is now picking a host site for a facility that could process 200k bbl / d and connect to deepwater port infrastructure, with large-scale storage and marine export facilities. Backers plan to produce ultra-low-sulfur diesel and jet fuel for the US, Gulf, Atlantic Basin, and other markets.
The project is clearly in early days, so look at it as a potential archetype, not as a done deal. The consortium has narrowed its search to three locations in the GCC and expects to select a host by the end of the year. The consortium doesn’t yet have a feedstock provider and its bankability will be a function of who’s providing that feedstock, locked-in offtake agreements, and where the backers are proposing to build.
Why this matters: For all the talk of raw crude bypass projects across the region, refined-product bypass projects would solve a sharper pain point in the energy markets. Over the last few months, refined products have been more price-sensitive than crude, as the current infrastructure in the region already allows for better redundancy for raw crude flows. We’ve seen crude prices normalize during periods of ceasefire even with Hormuz shipping still behind pre-war levels, while refined products margins sustained their rally.
Seizing the moment?
Saudi Arabia is trying to use the momentum from last week’sUS nuclear agreement(itself not really a done deal) to secure a purchase of F-35 fighter jets. Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman was in Washington this week to lobby for the F-35s and wider security cooperation, Semafor reports, citing unnamed sources. US President Donald Trump had indicated in November his readiness to provide “a lot” of F-35s and later approved a defense sale package that included future deliveries of the fighter jets following a visit by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
A dual message on Iran: Meeting with US Vice President JD Vance, bin Salman reportedly said Riyadh still favors de-escalation with Tehran despite this week’s joint US-Saudi strikes on Iran-aligned forces in Iraq, Axios reports, citing an unnamed source. The sit-down was intended to assure Washington that the military action was strictly an act of self-defense, the source said.
SPEAKING OF SAUDI- The Kingdom's economy shrank almost 5% in the second quarter compared to the same period a year ago, its biggest decline since the covid-19 pandemic as the oil sector shrank by a quarter. Saudi GDP grew 3% in the first quarter of the year, which included just a month of the war’s impact.
Rebuilding the network
The Central Bank of Syria (CBS) hassigned an agreementto open an account at Turkey’s central bank, the latest move in Damascus’ push to rebuild correspondent banking networks worldwide after over 14 years of sanctions. The two sides also agreed to cooperate on payment-system upgrades, and to help Syrian commercial banks open their own correspondent accounts in Turkey.
MENA+ Edition 
Egypt Edition 
UAE Edition 
Saudi Edition 
Logistics (MENA) 
Share Issue
