As industry recovers from war-related disruption, Bahrain could resume LNG imports in 2027

Bahrain could resume LNG imports next year at levels close to the eight cargoes it took in 2025, as industry recovers from war-related disruption, Bapco Upstream executive VP Bader Albuqaishi told Argus. The kingdom has received just one LNG cargo in 2026, with no more expected before year-end, after the March attacks and trade restrictions disrupted industrial operations and cut gas demand. A return to last year’s levels depends on the pace of the industrial recovery.

Factory demand will decide it: Bahrain entered 2026 expecting to import more LNG to meet growing industrial and electricity demand. Instead, factory disruptions and shortages of imported raw materials cut consumption. It imported around 635k tons of LNG between May and October 2025, with deliveries peaking at 217k tons in August as summer power demand rose, according to Kpler data cited by Argus.

The terminal is ready for the cargoes: Bahrain’s LNG terminal near Khalifa Bin Salman Port has 173k cbm of storage and regasification capacity of up to 800 mn scf / d. AD Ports Group subsidiary Noatum Maritime secured a five-year contract to provide marine service at the terminal in November 2025, including LNG carrier berthing, towage, and emergency response.

Bahrain’s own gas output is back, and its refinery is nearly there: Domestic gas production recovered to almost 2.3 bn cf / d in August from 1.9 bn cf / d in April. Meanwhile, the country’s 405k bbl / d Sitra refinery, damaged by missile strikes in March, is operating above 80% of capacity and could return to full throughput by the end of November, industry sources told Argus in a separate report.

Local currency pilot

Egypt and India have carried out the first successful pilot transfer settling trade in their own currencies, Indian Ambassador to Egypt Suresh K. Reddy told Al Arabiya. The pilot is designed to test technical payment rails and lower FX conversion friction ahead of scaling corporate trade settlements in EGP and INR.

The pilot is backed by an ambitious India-Egypt trade cooperation. The two countries had set a target of increasing annual bilateral trade from USD 6.5 bn in FY 2025-26 to USD 12 bn within five years. Egypt’s Ambassador to India Kamel Galal had pointed out key avenues for the planned target, such as joint manufacturing of fashion goods in the Suez Canal Economic Zone, rising solar panel imports from India, and targeting the Indian IT sector to contribute to Egypt’s digital transformation.

This is part of a wider push from Egypt, which has been leveraging different pathways to increase trade with local currencies with multiple trading partners, sidestepping the USD. The country previously settled grain imports from Russia in RUB. It holds currency swap lines with the UAE and China, and is also an active issuer of Panda bonds, which helps inject CNY and AED liquidity into its FX markets to settle trade transactions in those currencies. Egypt is also planning to link its online payment platform InstaPay to the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, which would let Egyptian traders settle with African counterparts in local currencies rather than rely on USD.

Digging into Gabon

An Abu Dhabi-based miner is behind a proposed USD 2 bn plan to revive one of Gabon’s long-stalled rare-earth projects, according to a statement from Gabon’s presidency. Abu Dhabi-based minerals developer and investor New Energy Metals (NEM) and its subsidiary Dusk Gabon presented a technical study for the Mabounié niobium and rare-earth deposit to Gabonese President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema during his visit to Beijing. The study was prepared with Chinese engineering partner ENFI and puts the investment at USD 2 bn, with more than 2.5k direct jobs. Construction could start in 2027, Bloomberg reports.

Gabon wants the processing done at home: The president’s condition is that the niobium be processed in Gabon, in line with a broader push to make foreign industrial partners create jobs and value locally. Mabounié, c. 200 km southeast of Libreville, has been prospected for years without reaching commercial production. Neither the presidency nor Bloomberg said how the project would be financed.

IN CONTEXT- The UAE has been building closer economic ties with Gabon this year: the two countries signed a trade agreement in January, and mining development featured in several bilateral MoUs signed in February.