Monday 07 / September / 2026
Muscat: Oman is becoming a specialised structured-finance market with real depth in infrastructure, renewables, logistics and hydrogen. As Vision 2040 projects move from development into execution, structured finance is the bridge between national ambition and global institutional capital, said Nooreen Naaz, Associate Vice President (Capital Markets & Partnerships), Graystone Capital.
Structured finance sits between conventional corporate lending and the capital markets, she said added that, “Rather than lending against a sponsor's balance sheet, it is built around the cash flows, assets, contracts and risks of a single transaction, so a project is assessed on its own economics.”
“In Oman this means project and infrastructure finance, syndicated lending, asset-backed structures, acquisition finance, export-credit-supported facilities, sukuk and, increasingly, green and sustainability-linked instruments,” she said. Power, water, ports, logistics, petrochemicals, renewables and green hydrogen are the natural candidates, the practical advantage of this type of financing is scale she added.
A single structure can bring local banks, international lenders, export credit agencies, Islamic institutions and institutional investors into one project, which is how Oman finances assets are far larger than any domestic balance sheet could carry alone.
Although there is no single official statistic labelled "Oman structured-finance market," Nooreen Naaz said, “These transactions are reported across bank lending, project finance, syndicated loans, bonds and sukuk. But the direction is unambiguous.”
Central Bank of Oman (CBO) data shows that total credit reached OMR38.2 billion at the end of June 2026, up 12.3 percent year on year, with deposits rising 13 percent to OMR37.3 billion. Under Vision 2040's financial-sector programme, bank financing directed to priority diversification sectors increased by around 14 percent and now represents roughly 23 percent of commercial banks' lending portfolios.
Capital markets are carrying more of the load. Oman returned to international markets in November 2025 with a $1 billion sovereign sukuk priced at 60 basis points over US Treasuries. In June 2026, the eleventh local sovereign sukuk attracted nearly OMR250 million of demand against a base size of OMR100 million, roughly 2.5 times, allowing the greenshoe to be exercised and the issue to close at OMR120 million with a 4.2 percent profit rate.
Underpinning all of it is the sovereign's own repair work. Government debt fell to 34.6 percent of GDP at the end of 2025, from 67.9 percent in 2020. That is the single biggest reason international lenders price Omani risk more finely today.
When asked whether structured financing is genuinely reaching large projects, she said, “Yes, and the track record is stronger than many realise.”
The Duqm refinery remains the reference transaction, she said, adding, “The roughly $8 billion project raised $4.61 billion of senior debt from 29 financial institutions across 13 countries, with cover from three export credit agencies, and it included the largest Sharia-compliant facility ever extended to a greenfield project in Oman.”
Similarly, in 2025, “The refinery passed its lenders' reliability test, establishing the actual completion date and releasing more than $4 billion of shareholder guarantees. That is a full project-finance cycle, completed.”
Renewables also show the same model at smaller scale. The Manah I 500MW solar plant reached financial close with equity and debt from institutions including Korea Eximbank, Societe Generale and Bank Muscat, under a long-term power-purchase framework.
Regarding the instruments involved in structured financing she said, “Limited-recourse project finance, syndicated and club loans, asset-backed and receivables financing, securitisation, acquisition finance, structured trade and commodity finance, ECA-supported debt, mezzanine debt, bonds and sukuk.”
For infrastructure the architecture is familiar: a special purpose vehicle, a long-term concession or offtake agreement, sponsor equity, senior debt and a security package over project assets and cash flows. What matters less is the product name than how construction, completion, offtaker, commodity, operating and refinancing risks are allocated between the project company, sponsors, lenders and counterparties.
When asked whether structured financing is supporting diversification in Oman, she said, "This is where it becomes strategically important."
“Oman's diversification programme requires substantial private and international capital across renewables, green hydrogen, manufacturing, logistics, tourism, mining, food security and digital infrastructure,” she added.
“Government and domestic bank balance sheets cannot reasonably fund that cycle alone,” she further pointed out.
Structured finance converts commercially viable projects into bankable assets, combining sponsor equity, domestic liquidity, international banks, ECAs, development institutions and capital-market investors.
Oman's green hydrogen sector illustrates the scale. Hydrom's awarded portfolio has grown to nine projects representing more than $50 billion of prospective investment. “I would add one caution,” she said adding, “awarding a project is not the same as reaching financial close. The real test of Oman's structured-finance capability over the next three years is how many of those awards convert into signed, funded transactions.”
Regarding how relevant Sharia-compliant structured financing is, she says, “Highly relevant. Islamic banking has expanded quickly since Oman's framework was introduced in 2012. Assets of Islamic banks and windows reached OMR10 billion by June 2026, up 8.7 percent year on year, with financing of OMR8 billion, approaching one-fifth of total banking-sector assets.
“Ijara, Murabaha, Musharaka, Wakalah, Istisna'a and sukuk can all sit alongside conventional facilities within a single transaction, as Duqm demonstrated. Oman has also issued its first ESG sukuk, by Oman Electricity Transmission Company, an early sign that Sharia-compliant and sustainable finance are converging here, she added.
She further pointed out that in the first half of 2026, Omani issuers raised $1.82 billion across six bond and sukuk issuances, against roughly $49 billion in Saudi Arabia and $25 billion in the UAE. Oman's Financial Services Authority itself describes the domestic capital market as relatively small and less liquid, which keeps banks and international lenders central to large transactions.
The constraint worth naming is that a meaningful share of current issuance is refinancing rather than new capital formation. Deepening the domestic institutional investor base and secondary-market liquidity remains unfinished work.
But size is the wrong measure, she said adding that “Oman is becoming a specialised structured-finance market with real depth in infrastructure, renewables, logistics and hydrogen. As Vision 2040 projects move from development into execution, structured finance is the bridge between national ambition and global institutional capital.”
