Sharjah is the latest emirate to join the UAE exploration party.
Quite independently of Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah National Oil Company, on June 25, announced it was offering three blocks to companies to search for oil and gas.
The policy is right; now it’s time for the geologists.
Area A surrounds the existing producing fields around the Sajaa industrial zone, with its western limit approximately following the E611 Emirates Road, and includes a deep gas find under the Sajaa field itself which has never been developed. Area B runs south of this location to around Al Madam, covering the gap between Sharjah’s own fields and the Margham gasfield in Dubai, which lies off the Lehbab-Hatta Road.
And Area C, the “inner thrust belt”, is the eastern part of the emirate’s contiguous territory, running up to the mountains.
The city itself, the adjoining offshore, and the east coast exclaves of Kalba and Khor Fakkan, have not been offered for exploration yet, but could be in future.
The mountains running from Musandam down the eastern side of the UAE and into mainland Oman are a “thrust belt”, where two of the plates forming the Earth’s crust have collided. Rocks of the eastern plate, part of a now-vanished ocean known as Tethys, have been pushed over the Arabian Plate. This forms underground domes and other structures which are potential traps for hydrocarbons, potentially as deep as 6,000 metres below the surface. Such mountain ranges hold major oil and gasfields in areas including the Rockies, the Zagros of Iran and the Iraqi Kurdistan region, the Caucasus, and the Peruvian Andes.
But despite the discovery of Sajaa and two other onshore gasfields, the last of which started production in 1994, Sharjah’s complex geology had defied earlier understanding and led to the drilling of numerous dry (unsuccessful) wells.
To drum up interest in its new bid round, the Sharjah National Oil Company itself acquired three-dimensional seismic data covering the whole of areas A and B, and also extending into Dubai. This survey uses the reflection of sound waves to form a picture of the geology. The 3D seismic analysis gives a much clearer picture than the older two-dimensional method, like identifying a face seen through a window instead of through frosted bathroom glass.
Last year, government-owned RAK Gas also carried out such a survey in its offshore area, as well as acquiring gravity data covering all its territory. Subtle variations in the strength of the Earth’s gravity are a further hint to what is going on below the surface. Providing such information to interested companies lowers their risk.
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The likeness of the geology of Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah may provide useful hints. Attracting new exploration ideas and technologies from outside is vital. Major discoveries around the world over the past few years have involved fresh thinking – the ultra deep-water “pre-salt” in Brazil, the ancient limestone reef that holds Egypt’s giant Zohr gasfield, and tracing the match between Guyana and Ghana before the Atlantic Ocean opened.
The understanding of unconventional resources – particularly shale in North America – has also advanced enormously and Abu Dhabi in particular recognises potential. Next door, Oman has exploited “tight” (low-permeability) gas reservoirs to sustain its exports, while Bahrain seeks to produce offshore shale oil.
The coincidence of the three emirates’ bid rounds is not intentional but convenient. Abu Dhabi’s territory, with the prospect of giant oil and gasfields, should attract major firms. The other two emirates may generate interest from both large and medium-sized companies. Now business development teams can look at all three simultaneously.
Sharjah and RAK have taken extensive expert advice to make their legal and petroleum taxation systems attractive and competitive. Potential investors will be attracted by extensive existing infrastructure, in a stable and safe country with a skilled petroleum workforce. Any discoveries will find a ready market and attractive gas prices.
In their heyday in the 1980s and early '90s, Sharjah’s gasfields supplied all its demand and a large part of Dubai’s. They also yielded large quantities of condensate, a valuable light oil. But since then, overall production has dwindled. The Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority was forced to burn expensive diesel and fuel oil for power, putting it under financial strain and leading to rising prices for consumers.
This encouraged a search for new gas supplies, with a deal signed for pipeline imports with Mubadala-controlled Dolphin Energy in October 2016, and plans to start up a liquefied natural gas import terminal, the country’s third, next year. More domestic production would be preferable to imports, though. Oil and gas makes up just 2 per cent of the government budget, and more revenues would help to fill a modest budget deficit.
RAK signed up for Dolphin gas at the same time, but it would also like to find more oil and gas of its own, to power its growing industrial sector, and keep its under-utilised gas processing plant fully occupied.
Looking for petroleum is always an uncertain business, especially in such complex geology. With an exploration period up to six years, it will be some time before any production reaches consumers. But RAK and now Sharjah have taken the first steps on making the most of their hydrocarbon potential.
Robin Mills is CEO of Qamar Energy and author of The Myth of the Oil Crisis
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Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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