Latest news with #GulfOfOman
Trade Arabia
21-05-2025
- Business
- Trade Arabia
TMG Holding to develop $4.7bn real estate projects in Oman
Leading Egyptian developer Talaat Moustafa Group Holding (TMG Holding) said it has entered into an agreement with Oman's Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning to develop two large-scale projects in the sultanate at an investment of RO1.8 billion ($4.7 billion). The agreement marks TMG Holding's first venture into Oman and aligns with the company's regional expansion strategy focused on developing integrated smart cities across the Middle East. Announcing the key projects, TMG Holding said the first one will cover 2.7 million sq m in Sultan Haitham City, west of Muscat. Strategically located near Muscat International Airport, the mixed-use development will include villas, apartment buildings, a 190,000 sqm social and sports club, and 140,000 sqm of commercial and service areas. The second development will span 2.2 million sq m in Al Shakheekhit, a coastal area west of Muscat and near Beit Al Baraka Palace. It will boast luxury seafront villas connected to a lagoon, a luxury hotel, residential units, a yacht marina, and chalets along a 1,760-m-long beachfront on the Gulf of Oman. The project will also include the 215,000 sqm Al Naseem Heritage Park, a large green space with views across the development. The deal was signed by Omani Minister of Housing and Urban Planning, Dr Khalfan Al Shueili and TMG Holding Chairman Hisham Talaat Moustafa in the presence of senior officials. Both the projects will be carried out by the group's Oman-based development arm - Talaat Moustafa Group Muscat for Real Estate Development. TMG Holding aims to deliver around 12,900 residential units across the two projects, including approximately 9,200 conventional and serviced apartments. The developments will be executed concurrently, it stated. "Both these projects aim to replicate TMG Holding's successful integrated community model established in Egypt through its flagship developments Madinaty, Noor, and Al Rehab, as well as its recent expansion into Saudi Arabia," said a company spokesman.
Times of Oman
20-05-2025
- Business
- Times of Oman
Talaat Moustafa and Ministry of Housing sign 1.5B Omani riyals real estate and tourism deal
Talaat Moustafa Group (TMG) and the Omani Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning today, Monday, May 19, 2025, signed an agreement to develop two projects – a real estate and a tourism-related venture – west of Muscat, the Omani capital. The signatories were His Excellency Dr. Khalfan Al Shueili, the Omani Minister of Housing and Urban Planning, and Mr. Hisham Talaat Moustafa, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Talaat Moustafa Group Muscat for Real Estate Development. Mr. Hisham Talaat stated that the total investment value of the two projects amounts to approximately 1.5 billion Omani Riyals and will provide about 13,000 residential and hotel units across over 4.9 million square meters. Furthermore, he noted that the two projects, situated on adjacent land plots west of Oman's capital, Muscat, will be linked by an electric train. Integrated residential project in Sultan Haitham City The initial 2.7 million square meter land plot in Sultan Haitham City will become a smart, integrated-services residential development, mirroring the success of Talaat Moustafa Group's Madinaty and other projects in Egypt. The residential project will feature diverse models of villas and apartments, in addition to a social and sports club covering an area of 190,000 square meters, and commercial and service areas spanning 140,000 square meters. The project enjoys a prime location minutes away from Muscat International Airport. Global tourism project with a unique view on the Gulf of Oman Situated along the Al-Shakhakhit coast, the second land plot, spanning approximately 2.2 million square meters with a 1,760-meter beachfront on the Gulf of Oman (directly west of Beit al Baraka Palace), will be transformed into a world-class tourism destination. The project features a yacht marina, a tourist hotel, villa-areas with unique sea views linked by artificial lakes, as well as cabins and residential buildings (apartments). The tourism project enjoys a strategic location approximately 4 km from Sultan Haitham City and minutes from Muscat International Airport. It also intersects with the 215,000 square meter Al Naseem Heritage and Entertainment Park, providing vast green spaces and a distinctive view for various units of the project. Vast green spaces and integrated services The real estate and tourism projects, both offer a high quality of life with comprehensive services catering to all resident needs. Over 50% of their total area is dedicated to expansive green spaces and open areas. Religious, health, entertainment, and sports services are also available, alongside daily and seasonal commercial offerings. Furthermore, the projects will leverage cutting-edge smart technologies for management and operation. The Sultanate of Oman marks Talaat Moustafa Group's second venture outside Egypt, following their initial projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. These Saudi Arabian endeavors include Banan City, a 10 million square meter development northeast of Riyadh. Talaat Moustafa Group: Egypt's foremost real estate and tourism developer Talaat Moustafa Group is the largest real estate and tourism developer in Egypt and one of the leading integrated institutions in Egypt and the Middle East. Over nearly 55 years, TMG has successfully established self-sustaining, integrated-services urban cities and communities across Egypt. Examples include Madinaty, Al Rehab, and Noor in East Cairo, with upcoming projects like SouthMED in the northwestern coast of Egypt and Banan City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Talaat Moustafa Group has reached a new milestone with cumulative real estate sales exceeding one trillion Egyptian pounds, underscoring its position as Egypt's leading real estate entity and the significant trust of its over 200,000 clients. The Group also possesses Egypt's largest land portfolio, now over 107 million square meters, and its projects are home to more than 1.5 million residents. Talaat Moustafa has also significantly advanced tourism development by creating unprecedented international-standard projects under the "Four Seasons" brand in Sharm El Sheikh, Cairo, and Alexandria, alongside the Kempinski Nile Hotel in Cairo. Currently, the Group is developing three additional hotels in Luxor, Madinaty, and Marsa Alam. Additionally, the Group is undertaking the renovation and development of seven historic hotels: Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan, Mövenpick Resort Aswan, Sofitel Winter Palace Luxor, Steigenberger El Tahrir Hotel, Steigenberger Cecil Alexandria Hotel, Marriott Mena House Cairo, and Marriott Omar Khayyam Zamalek. Talaat Moustafa Group has also commenced the implementation of the first hotel under the global "Four Seasons" brand on Egypt's North Coast within its new SouthMED project.
Zawya
19-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Egypt's Talaat Moustafa Group to invest $4bln in Oman
Egypt's Talaat Moustafa Group (TMG) and Oman's Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning have agreed to develop two projects west of Muscat for 1.5 billion Omani Riyals ($3.89 billion). The two projects, situated on adjacent land plots, will house nearly 13,000 residential and hotel units and will be linked by an electric train, the company said in a statement. The residential development will be built on a 2.7 million square metre (sqm) land plot in Sultan Haitham City, mirroring the group's Madinaty and other projects in Egypt. The residential project will feature villas and apartments, in addition to a social and sports club covering an area of 190,000 sqm, as well as 140,000 sqm of commercial and service areas. The tourism project will be developed along Al-Shakhakhit coast, covering 2.2 million sqm with a 1,760-metre beachfront on the Gulf of Oman. The project will have a yacht marina, a tourist hotel, sea view villas linked by artificial lakes, as well as cabins and residential apartments. Oman's foray marks the group's second venture outside Egypt, following their first project in Saudi Arabia with Banan City, a 10 million sqm development northeast of Riyadh. (Writing by P Deol; Editing by Anoop Menon)
Zawya
19-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Talaat Moustafa and Oman Ministry of Housing sign 1.5bln Omani riyals real estate and tourism deal
Talaat Moustafa Group (TMG) and the Omani Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning today, Monday, May 19, 2025, signed an agreement to develop two projects – a real estate and a tourism-related venture – west of Muscat, the Omani capital. The signatories were His Excellency Dr. Khalfan Al Shueili, the Omani Minister of Housing and Urban Planning, and Mr. Hisham Talaat Moustafa, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Talaat Moustafa Group Muscat for Real Estate Development. Mr. Hisham Talaat stated that the total investment value of the two projects amounts to approximately 1.5 billion Omani Riyals and will provide about 13,000 residential and hotel units across over 4.9 million square meters. Furthermore, he noted that the two projects, situated on adjacent land plots west of Oman's capital, Muscat, will be linked by an electric train. Integrated residential project in Sultan Haitham City The initial 2.7 million square meter land plot in Sultan Haitham City will become a smart, integrated-services residential development, mirroring the success of Talaat Moustafa Group's Madinaty and other projects in Egypt. The residential project will feature diverse models of villas and apartments, in addition to a social and sports club covering an area of 190,000 square meters, and commercial and service areas spanning 140,000 square meters. The project enjoys a prime location minutes away from Muscat International Airport. Global tourism project with a unique view on the Gulf of Oman Situated along the Al-Shakhakhit coast, the second land plot, spanning approximately 2.2 million square meters with a 1,760-meter beachfront on the Gulf of Oman (directly west of Beit al Baraka Palace), will be transformed into a world-class tourism destination. The project features a yacht marina, a tourist hotel, villa-areas with unique sea views linked by artificial lakes, as well as cabins and residential buildings (apartments). The tourism project enjoys a strategic location approximately 4 km from Sultan Haitham City and minutes from Muscat International Airport. It also intersects with the 215,000 square meter Al Naseem Heritage and Entertainment Park, providing vast green spaces and a distinctive view for various units of the project. Vast green spaces and integrated services The real estate and tourism projects, both offer a high quality of life with comprehensive services catering to all resident needs. Over 50% of their total area is dedicated to expansive green spaces and open areas. Religious, health, entertainment, and sports services are also available, alongside daily and seasonal commercial offerings. Furthermore, the projects will leverage cutting-edge smart technologies for management and operation. The Sultanate of Oman marks Talaat Moustafa Group's second venture outside Egypt, following their initial projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. These Saudi Arabian endeavors include Banan City, a 10 million square meter development northeast of Riyadh. Talaat Moustafa Group: Egypt's foremost real estate and tourism developer Talaat Moustafa Group is the largest real estate and tourism developer in Egypt and one of the leading integrated institutions in Egypt and the Middle East. Over nearly 55 years, TMG has successfully established self-sustaining, integrated-services urban cities and communities across Egypt. Examples include Madinaty, Al Rehab, and Noor in East Cairo, with upcoming projects like SouthMED in the northwestern coast of Egypt and Banan City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Talaat Moustafa Group has reached a new milestone with cumulative real estate sales exceeding one trillion Egyptian pounds, underscoring its position as Egypt's leading real estate entity and the significant trust of its over 200,000 clients. The Group also possesses Egypt's largest land portfolio, now over 107 million square meters, and its projects are home to more than 1.5 million residents. Talaat Moustafa has also significantly advanced tourism development by creating unprecedented international-standard projects under the "Four Seasons" brand in Sharm El Sheikh, Cairo, and Alexandria, alongside the Kempinski Nile Hotel in Cairo. Currently, the Group is developing three additional hotels in Luxor, Madinaty, and Marsa Alam. Additionally, the Group is undertaking the renovation and development of seven historic hotels: Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan, Mövenpick Resort Aswan, Sofitel Winter Palace Luxor, Steigenberger El Tahrir Hotel, Steigenberger Cecil Alexandria Hotel, Marriott Mena House Cairo, and Marriott Omar Khayyam Zamalek. Talaat Moustafa Group has also commenced the implementation of the first hotel under the global "Four Seasons" brand on Egypt's North Coast within its new SouthMED project.
Telegraph
08-05-2025
- Science
- Telegraph
Water from brine: How the Gulf states are making the desert bloom
Standing in front of a seaside mosque in the port city of Sur, Mohammad Humeet al-Shumaki, 61, vividly remembers using a rusted jerrycan to fetch water for his family as a teenager. It involved a dusty three-mile to a brackish well but he would do it with friends. 'Every young boy carried a jerrycan – it was as essential as a football or schoolbook,' al-Shumaki recalled. Now, decades later, water flows freely to his home in Sur in eastern Oman through a network of modern pipes. 'There are no cuts, no shortages. Water runs 24 hours a day,' he says, gesturing proudly to the spigot at the side of his two-storey home – it's 'a blessing'. Across Oman and much of the Gulf, the previously unimaginable has become routine because of the world's most ambitious desalination project. Nearly half – about 45 per cent – of the planet's freshwater desalination occurs in the Arabian Gulf. In some areas, desalination provides up to 90 per cent of drinking water needs. Sur is home to one of the largest of the region's 850 individual plants. It stretches nearly a mile along the coastline of the Gulf of Oman, (which is a continuation of Arabian sea and not directly on the Arabian sea) and turns seawater into potable supply for more than half a million people. Its modular 'reverse osmosis' plant is entirely powered by the sun through a massive 17 megawatt (MW) solar farm. Removing the salt from seawater sounds like it should be simple but requires state-of-the-art equipment, a lot of space and a great deal of energy. First, engineers extract salt water from 30 coastal wells through high-density polyethylene pipes and disinfect it with sodium hypochlorite, a form of bleach. The water then moves into Dissolved Air Filtration (DAF) units where tiny air bubbles swirl like champagne, latching onto microorganisms and filtering them out. Only then is the water forced through thousands of spiral membranes, which extract the salt. At the Sur plant, run by the French utility company Veolia, 12,000 spiral membranes, each 40 metres long, purify up to 130 million litres of water per day – enough to fill 52 Olympic sized swimming pools. We watch as water surges through the yellow spiral membranes, creating such a deafening noise that prolonged exposure without earplugs would impair hearing. The surrounding network of piping is like a colour coded spaghetti: blue for seawater, light blue for filtered water, white for brine discharge, pink for cleaning inlets, green for flushing lines and so on. Finally, once fully filtered, the water undergoes remineralisation to make it safe for human consumption. For decades, the major challenge with water desalination has been to make the process energy efficient and therefore affordable. Even now energy accounts for roughly 45 per cent of the cost of producing a cubic metre of desalinated water, says Estelle Brachlianoff, chief executive of Veolia. Previously desalination relied on heat energy to power a distillation process, where seawater was first evaporated and then condensed into freshwater. The new filtering process has greatly improved efficiency but challenges of cost remain. 'To make the process more energy-efficient has been a big challenge and still is to a certain extent,' said Ms Brachlianoff. 'The membranes are super fragile and salt is extremely aggressive. 'With reverse osmosis and smart membrane management, we've achieved up to 85 per cent energy efficiency. 'Now, we're also deploying generative AI to monitor and optimise membrane performance in real-time to make the process still more efficient.' Combined with green electricity and other innovations, desalination costs have dropped significantly in the past decade, from about $5 a cubic metre to under $0.5 today. With 50 per cent of the world's population living in water-scarce regions – and 80 per cent living near coastlines – the Middle East has become an innovation hub for global solutions. The combination of falling costs and climate change now mean there is growing interest in the desalination technologies across the globe. Veolia, which has 18 per cent of the global market, aims to double its operating capacity by next year, driven primarily by the Middle East, Pacific Asia, and some countries in Europe. 'You may think countries like the UK wouldn't need this, but we've already a unit there. We also operate sites in Australia, and interest is growing in the U.S. and South America – places where water scarcity was once unthinkable,' said Ms Brachlianoff. In Sur and across Oman, these facilities now provide safe drinking water to millions, dramatically reducing illness from waterborne diseases that once plagued the region. Jasim al-Zarai, 47, of Jalan Bani Bu Ali in Ash Sharqiyah South Governorate says the desalination plants have become the 'lifeblood' of Oman. During al-Zarai's childhood, diarrhoea, jaundice and people fainting due to lack of access to safe drinking water was common. 'I don't know whether it was because of the intake of the underground salty water, but I can say incidence of these diseases have come down manifold with the access to desalinated water,' Mr. al-Zarai said. 'Access to safe drinking water is key to public health, and in Oman's arid climate, desalination is not just a utility – it's a lifeline 'Veolia's innovations are making this vital resource more affordable and sustainable, helping communities thrive where water scarcity would otherwise limit healthy living,' Less than one per cent of the world's drinking water is desalinated while the Gulf countries depend on desalination plants for up to 90 per cent of their water needs. The water is not only needed for people and cities to grow, but for the region's tourism, industry and agriculture. 'Desalination has enabled the Gulf states to grow their populations and economies hand in hand,' Mr. al-Zarai said. Nevertheless there remain challenges. The discharge of hypersaline brine – a byproduct of the desalination process – into the sea remains a major environmental issue in the Gulf. It threatens to undermine marine ecosystems, and it can contaminate groundwater, according to Dr. Mushtaque Ahmed, a professor of water engineering at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat. The Middle East is responsible for around 70 per cent of the world's brine output – disproportionately high compared to the amount of desalinated water produced. That's largely because its desalination plants rely heavily on seawater, which contains more salt than the brackish water commonly treated in places in other parts of the world. 'The desalination plants in Oman are designed to diffuse the brine across wider areas to limit the environmental damage,' Dr Ahmed said. 'But the risks are still significant.' 'In areas with strong marine currents, we release the brine several miles offshore, where it disperses quickly and naturally,' Ms Brachlianoff said. 'But when the currents are weaker, we use multiple discharge points to spread the brine more evenly and avoid damaging marine ecosystems.' 'Every site starts with a detailed study of the seabed and water movement,' she added. 'It's not a one-size-fits-all approach. Our priority is to minimise the environmental impact and protect local marine life.' While desalination provides water security in the Gulf, it also exposes strategic vulnerability. In March, Qatar's prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, warned that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would "entirely contaminate" the waters of the Gulf. The waters of the Gulf are also dotted with offshore oil rigs and plied by the world's largest oil tankers. An oil spill there would have the potential to disrupt the water supply of multiple Gulf countries. And this is not just theoretical. In the First Gulf War, when the Iraqi Army retreated from Kuwait, they destroyed what was then the country's only desalination plant and then released Kuwaiti oil into the Gulf, creating a large oil slick which disrupted the wider region's desalination. 'Water is as important and strategic as oil for the Gulf states,' said Ms Brachlianoff. 'Its scarcity was a limiting factor, but the desalination has brought strategic independence'.
