Regional Trade & Infrastructure Editor, Gulf Business Review
Sarah Malik covers trade, transport and infrastructure across the GCC, comparing projects on consistent measures and separating planned capacity from assets already in service.
The beat is reported from official statistics, regulator publications, company filings and named institutional research. Forecasts, commitments and completed outcomes are labelled separately.
Sarah's regional work depends on comparability. Airport passengers, port throughput, rail investment and logistics capacity use different units and project stages, so she preserves the original measure and date rather than forcing unlike infrastructure into one regional ranking.
Her GCC perspective is useful precisely because she keeps the national markets distinct. A project in Saudi Arabia, the UAE or Oman is placed in regional context only after local ownership, status and operating conditions are established, which prevents a Gulf-wide narrative from flattening material differences.
The pipeline was built to give Saudi crude a route to the Red Sea without crossing Hormuz. Its precautionary shutdown shows why alternative export infrastructure has become part of the oil price itself.
Saudi Arabia's western oil system combines the East-West Pipeline with Yanbu terminals and access to Suez, SUMED and the Cape route, creating the Gulf's deepest alternative to Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline and the UAE's Fujairah route are the Gulf's two major operating oil bypass systems, but capacity, destination and spare headroom differ sharply.
Rerouting Saudi crude to the Red Sea reduces Hormuz exposure but can create dependence on Bab el-Mandeb, Suez and SUMED, turning oil security into a chain of bottlenecks.
Unused pipeline capacity can look inefficient in normal markets. During a shipping disruption it becomes an option that preserves exports, pricing power and customer relationships.
Saudi Arabia shut the East-West Pipeline as a precaution after multiple attacks. The outage matters because the line is the Kingdom's principal crude-export alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.
The East-West Pipeline connects Saudi Arabia's eastern oil system with Yanbu on the Red Sea, giving the Kingdom its most important physical alternative to exporting crude through Hormuz.
Yanbu turns the East-West Pipeline into an export alternative by combining Red Sea terminals, storage and industrial infrastructure on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula from Hormuz.
Gulf Business Review audience research shows Saudi Arabia and the UAE dominate hypothetical new investment allocation, while the six GCC markets retain distinct risk and sector profiles.
Why power connections, cooling design and commissioning timelines matter as much as capital in the Gulf's AI data-centre buildout.
A comparative guide to the smaller GCC cloud and data-centre markets, with local enterprise infrastructure kept separate from the larger Saudi and UAE AI-campus race.
A country-by-country tracker of GCC data-centre, cloud-region and AI infrastructure development, with operating capacity separated from announced projects.
Strait of Hormuz shipping remains constrained in September 2026. We track oil flows, current risks and the Gulf pipelines and ports that can bypass the chokepoint.
Three Qatar and UAE LNG cargoes used unusual ship-to-ship transfers outside the Strait of Hormuz in 2026, highlighting Gulf export-route resilience and risk.
Regional ambition is sensible; licences, tax, customers and hiring still need six national operating cases.
The current disruption has turned alternative pipelines, Red Sea ports and eastern UAE infrastructure from strategic insurance into active commercial capacity.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have the region's most important existing alternatives, but capacity and product type limit how much trade can be redirected.
Jebel Ali remains the region's defining container hub, while Jeddah, Khalifa, Salalah and Sohar compete through different combinations of domestic cargo, transshipment and industrial demand.
The regional position says little about which institutions, currencies and maturities carry the exposure.
The Gulf has extensive national rail investment, but a seamless six-country freight and passenger network remains a cross-border delivery project rather than a finished system.
Regional visitors are important, but nights, spending and transport mode determine the benefit to each market.
Containers, bulk cargo and transshipment measure different businesses and should not be collapsed into one league table.
Generation volume shows scale, while peaks, reserve margins and transmission constraints determine reliability and cost.
Arrivals show movement, while overnight stays, source markets and receipts show the commercial value of demand.
The total shows financial depth, while funding, credit structure and consolidation decide whether banks are comparable.
GCC states produced 7.6 billion cubic metres of desalinated water in 2024, creating a long market for efficient plants and networks.
Dollar links reduce one exchange-rate risk but leave rates, funding costs and third-currency exposures intact.
GCC-Stat puts 2024 output at about $2.3 trillion at current prices, a useful scale measure that does not make six economies one market.