Amid efforts by all the Gulf states to wean their economies off dependence on oil and develop alternative fuels, the UAE is pushing to get more of its power from nuclear energy.

Four months after the UAE’s Barakah nuclear plant became 100% operational, the government is exploring the possibility of building a second nuclear facility, Reuters reports.

“The government is looking at this option, Hamad Alkaabi, the UAE’s Ambassador to Austria and Permanent Representative to the UN’s nuclear agency, told the news agency.

“No final decision has been made in terms of the tender process but I can tell you that the government is actively exploring this option.”

Any contract for a new nuclear power plant would be worth tens of billions of dollars and could attract tender bids from China, Russia and the U.S., among others, Reuters said.

The government has yet to budget for a second power plant or decide on the size or the location, but Alkaabi said it was possible a tender could be issued this year.

UAE property tycoon Mohamed Alabbar plans to invest up to $3 billion in Indonesia’s tourism sector.

Alabbar’s Eagle Hills Properties, an Abu Dhabi-based private real estate investment and development company, inked the one-year deal with Indonesia’s Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises in the presence of Indonesian President Joko Widodo and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.

Alabbar, who also heads Dubai’s largest developer, Emaar, visited Nusantara, where the Indonesian capital is being relocated, in May where he expressed interest in investing.

The deal to help develop and upgrade airport infrastructure and state-owned hotels comes as President Widodo has been wooing foreign investors before his final term ends this year.

Abu Dhabi alternative energy firm Masdar plans to sell more dollar-denominated green bonds as it forges on with global expansion plans.

The renewable-power company plans to offer five and 10-year green bonds in two tranches, Bloomberg reports.

Green bonds are a kind of fixed-income product used to fund projects that have positive environmental benefits.

The move follows up on $750 million worth of green bonds the company sold last year and statements that it would issue as much as $1 billion worth of green bonds this year.

The firm, which counts Taqa, Mubadala and ADNOC as owners, is targeting stakes in 100 gigawatts of clean projects by 2030 including a big push into the U.S. 

Mubadala-backed Aldar Properties has signed an agreement with DP World to develop a 1.55 million-square-foot logistics park as Abu Dhabi’s biggest real estate developer looks to expand in Dubai and respond to e-commerce driven demand for warehousing.

The project at National Industries park in the Jebel Ali neighborhood of Dubai gives Aldar access to develop and lease assets in a strategic location between Dubai’s major port and Al Maktoum International Airport.

The deal comes at a time when the UAE is jockeying for position in the global supply chain and to play a role in the region’s future food security.

The agreement with DP World is part of a $270 million investment Aldar announced in January to expand its logistics real estate business in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. 

As China seeks to strengthen economic ties with the Gulf, investors from the world’s second biggest economy are getting an opportunity to place their bets on Saudi stocks while paying with their own currency.

Two exchange-traded funds focused on Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy, debuted today in the corporate centers of Shanghai and Shenzhen that will enable investors to put Chinese yuan directly into Saudi businesses and access information in Chinese, Bloomberg reports.

China emerged last year as Saudi Arabia’s most active foreign investor, pouring $16.8 billion into the kingdom and accounting for 58% of new business investments – primarily focused on automotive, metals and semiconductor investments. That was more than 11 times the $1.5 billion that China invested in Saudi Arabia in 2023, according to Dubai-based Emirates NBD.

At the Shenzhen stock exchange today, the China Southern Asset Management CSOP Saudi Arabia ETF QDII started trading after raising 634 million yuan ($87 million), Bloomberg reported.  A second fund, the Huatai-PineBridge CSOP Saudi Arabia ETF QDII, began trading in Shanghai after raising 590 million yuan.

China Southern’s ETF targets investors “who have knowledge in equity markets, have demand for global asset allocation and have confidence in the energy sector,” said Mao Wei, the asset manager’s chief equity investment officer, according to Bloomberg. “People will pay more attention to Saudi Arabia looking at the energy and financial sector” compared with U.S. or Japan investment options, Wei said.

IPO fundraising jumped in Saudi Arabia during the first half of 2024 while slowing in other Gulf markets.

Saudi companies raised $2.1 billion in 19 offerings, a 141% increase from the first half of 2023, according to Markaz, the Kuwait Financial Centre.

The largest IPO in the region during the first half of the year was Dr. Soliman Abdulkader Fakeeh Hospital Co., which raised $764 million on the Tadawul Stock Exchange on June 4.

Across the GCC, the value of IPOs declined 32% to $3.6 billion during the first half of 2024, compared to $5.3 billion in the same period last year, Markaz said.

The UAE’s three IPOs during the first half raised $1.3 billion, down 67% percent from 2023. Alef Education led the UAE with an offering on the ADX that raised $515 million on June 11.

UAE residents woke up Sunday morning to a big cabinet reshuffle in the federal government.

Following approval from President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid announced the new cabinet, appointing his son Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, marking his first roles in the national government.

Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed was also named a Deputy Prime Minister.

In recent years, Sheikh Hamdan, often referred to as “Fazza” – he can be found @Faz3 on Instagram, where he has over 16 million followers – has taken on a more public role in the running of the emirate of Dubai, where his father is ruler.

A newly created post of Minister of State for Entrepreneurship has gone to Alia Abdullah Al Mazrouei, herself an entrepreneur and CEO of the Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development, according to her Linkedin profile. 

Omani carbon capture startup 44.01 has landed a fresh round of funding as it looks to commercialize its solution in the UAE and Oman — where it has completed pilot projects — to turn CO2 into rock and trap it under the Earth’s surface.

The firm, already backed by Sam Altman’s Apollo Projects, secured $37 million in Series A funding from a group of investors led by the UAE’s Shorooq Partners and Equinor Ventures. Other investors in the round include Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

44.01 declined to comment to The Circuit on how this round values the four-year-old company, but a spokesman said the next two years will be focused on delivering larger, commercial-scale projects and continuing to refine its technology.

With 50 people on staff across offices in Muscat, Abu Dhabi and London, 44.01 will “as much as double our headcount in the next two years” in engineering and research, the spokesman said. The company also plans to court clients working on carbon removal technologies and so-called “hard-to-abate” industries like steel and cement manufacturing.

Carbon dioxide can turn to rock naturally in a process called mineralization when absorbed by a certain kind of rock. 44.01, named after the molecular mass of CO2, has techniques to massively speed that process up – from decades to less than a year.

Part of the firm’s sales pitch is that rock formations capable of mineralizing and sequestering carbon dioxide are found on every continent, making it a transferrable solution worldwide. 

“Our investors bring a wealth of international expertise and experience that will help us to accelerate our development and ultimately mineralize CO2 at scale worldwide,” Talal Hasan, Founder and CEO of 44.01, said. “We believe mineralization can play a significant role in protecting and repairing our climate.”