Gulf oil giants turn sellers as QatarEnergy exits Egyptian refinery and Aramco weighs rubber sale

Gulf national oil companies are on the sell side today. QatarEnergy is leaving Egypt’s biggest refinery in a December close, and Aramco is weighing an outright sale of its Dutch synthetic rubber business — a step past the sale-and-leasebacks that have carried its divestment drive so far.

Qalaa Holdings is more than doubling its stake in subsidiary Egyptian Refining Company (ERC) to 27.1% from 13% in a transaction that takes QatarEnergy out of the refinery, according to a bourse filing (pdf). Closing is penciled in for December, with shareholders helping foot the bill through a capital hike.

Qalaa is buying 55.4% of New Age Refining, which is itself acquiring QatarEnergy’s local holding company QPI Egypt, and its 25.4% effective indirect stake in ERC, at par value. That works out to 14.1 percentage points of added exposure for Qalaa, by our math. ERC is Qalaa’s single largest asset, producing 4.2 mn tons of liquid petroleum products a year, plus 600k tons of pet coke and sulfur, according to the filing. It has contributed 88% of Qalaa’s total EGP 38.3 bn revenue in 3Q 2025 — the most recent period for which Qalaa issued financial statements.

Aramco is weighing an outright sale of Arlanxeo, its Netherlands-based synthetic rubber business, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the talks. Aramco’s recent monetization has leaned on sale-and-leasebacks and minority stakes in real estate and export terminals, transactions that raise money while keeping Aramco in operational control. Selling a business outright would go further, putting a non-core operating asset on the block rather than monetizing the asset while retaining control.

IN CONTEXT- Aramco is in the middle of a USD 35 bn divestment drive where it intends to keep full control of its upstream business while it explores stake sales midstream and downstream, including energy infrastructure, oil export and storage terminals, and real estate. It already sold its 50% stake in Malaysia’s PRefChem to Petronas in May and is exploring a sale-and-leaseback of real estate worth up to USD 10 bn.

Beltone Holding’s Beltone Venture Capital is closing three new investments worth around USD 1 mn in the next two to three months, CEO and Managing Partner Ali Mokhtar tells our Egypt desk. All three targets are local — fintech, proptech, and consumer finance — two at pre-seed and one at a more advanced operating stage, he says.

Exits are paying for it. Beltone VC has closed five exits since it started and is recycling proceeds. It’s at final signing on what Mokhtar calls a “big exit” locally, and a second Moroccan holding may be acquired outright at a 3x return in under 18 months — after its 100% IRR exit from Morocco’s Cathedis. Beltone VC’s planned EGP-denominated fund should go live by 1Q 2027 at the latest, announced at EGP 250 mn and possibly larger as new investors commit.

Oman is writing another Hong Kong cheque: The Oman Investment Authority (OIA) has received “in-principle approval” to commit up to HKD 250 mn (USD 32 mn) to the Templewater Innovation Fund — roughly 25% of the fund’s HKD 1 bn (USD 128 mn) target. The investment would mark the first Gulf sovereign commitment into the Hong Kong government’s Innovation and Technology Venture Fund Enhanced Scheme (ITVF), a HKD 2 bn government-backed program with nine preliminarily approved funds.

Half the fund’s capital is earmarked for deployment inside Oman, across advanced manufacturing, new energy, AI and data science, and health tech. It follows the same “Omani Angle” logic the OIA is embracing in other tech deals, such as ITHCA Group’s USD 13 mn investment in US chip designer GSME earlier this year: relatively small sovereign checks, in exchange for a standing claim on tech localization and knowledge transfer.

This is OIA’s second Templewater vehicle in a year. The two set up a USD 200 mn Energy Transition Fund through Future Fund Oman in September 2025, split evenly between them.

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