Economy
$3B bet: Mubadala-backed firm works on jet fuel from tropical fruit
Backed by Emirati Mubadala Capital, a Brazil-based venture is working on what could be one of the new and rare examples of fruits providing power for commercial aircraft.
In Brazil’s Minas Gerais state north of Sao Paulo, more than 200 researchers are racing to develop and commercialize an oil-rich fruit so that it can one day power jetliners, according to an exclusive report by Bloomberg News, published on Tuesday.
Agronomists, biotechnicians and automation experts are the brains behind a $3 billion project to plant the little-known macauba palm tree across as many as 144,000 hectares (356,000 acres) of land, an area slightly larger than the city of Los Angeles and then harvest it for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), the report suggests.
Once the first trees planted start bearing fruit, likely in 2030, energy and biofuels company Acelen Renovaveis plans to begin processing macauba oil at a biorefinery it’s building in another part of Brazil.
Acelen Renovaveis, which is fully owned by Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Capital, hopes to solidify Brazil’s role as one of the world’s top producers of biofuels and a leading supplier of clean jet fuel by industrializing the exotic fruit.
The company says its biorefinery under construction in Bahia state could eventually produce 20,000 barrels of SAF a day. That would translate to a big jump in worldwide output, which in 2025 was 41,000 barrels a day.
‘Fruit of the future’
Macauba is indigenous to South America and is naturally adapted to the semi-arid regions where Acelen Renovaveis is planting its trees.
The individual fruit is roughly the size of a small plum and has a fleshy pulp, which is what will be processed. According to the company, macauba can deliver seven to 10 times more oil per hectare than soybeans.
“We call it the fruit of the future,” Victor Barra, director of agribusiness, said in a greenhouse full of macauba clones and seedlings.
“It’s literally a power plant, an energy plant.”
The trees in Minas Gerais will grow on degraded pasture so they don’t compete with food production. Brazil has roughly 40 million hectares of degraded pasture. With that potential at hand, Mubadala Capital, the alternative asset management arm of wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co., has longer-term plans for up to five biorefineries in Brazil, Bloomberg reports.
Reports in recent years, including the one from Reuters in 2024, suggested that Mubadala Capital intended to invest about $13.5 billion in a major biofuels project in Brazil over the next decade.
Despite offering the promise of sustainability and at times when aviation fuel prices are on the rise, SAF’s share of all aviation fuel globally was at a shy 0.6% last year, according to the data compiled by Bloomberg.
Major energy companies continue to book massive earnings as they profit from volatility caused by the U.S.-Iran conflict.
Big oil companies are enjoying soaring gains from their trades as oil and gas futures swing between big gains and losses on the latest headlines linked to the U.S.-Iran war.
Crude prices have been volatile throughout the conflict and were far higher in the second quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier.
Six of Europe’s largest oil companies posted combined first-quarter profits of $22 billion, more than 40% higher than last year. Profits at BP more than doubled to $3.9 billion in the second quarter, the British giant said Tuesday. Its shares plunged, however, as traders said the strong growth had been widely expected.
And Saudi Aramco reported a 44% year-over-year increase in second-quarter net profit that reached $32.69 billion, driven by higher crude oil, refined products and chemicals prices.
Aramco’s gains came despite Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the key conduit for Gulf oil, and attacks on Saudi ships in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The supercharged performances from big oil in Europe and the Middle East follow reports of enormous profits from the largest U.S. oil drillers last week.
As the conflict has dragged on, high oil prices have driven up the cost of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel, which has led to higher shipping costs.
In the West, filling up the car or buying a plane ticket is costing consumers more. But the situation in parts of Asia is more dire because the region depends more heavily on fuel exported through the Strait of Hormuz. Fuel supplies have run low in some countries, leading to rationing and sporadic closures of schools and government offices.
‘Too much money’
Despite oil prices falling to their lowest level in three weeks Tuesday, big U.S. energy companies drew the ire of President Donald Trump, who criticized them this week for making “too much money” because of the war.
The five biggest Western energy majors – BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies – reported combined net profits of almost $47 billion in the second quarter.
Trump said oil giants should “give some of that back to the public,” a notable break from his usual alliance with the industry.
“I don’t like it. They’re making too much money, okay? Based on a shortage, they’re making too much money,” he said.
Trump said he’s not happy with Chevron and Exxon Mobil, though energy prices skyrocketed only after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February, and the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed off to tanker traffic.
About 20% of the world’s oil typically flows through the strait.
“Chevron, too much money. ExxonMobil, too much. Too much money,” Trump said.
Exxon Mobil on Friday reported that its second quarter profits doubled to $14.5 billion, boosted by record diesel production. The oil giant, based in Spring, Texas, brought in $116 billion in revenue, up 42%.
Chevron, based in Houston, nearly quadrupled its profits to $12 billion and revenue jumped 56% to more than $70 billion.
Higher gas prices and cost-of-living concerns pose a political risk to Trump ahead of November’s midterm elections when his fellow Republicans are seeking to retain control of Congress. Retail gasoline prices, currently averaging around $4.10 nationwide, have climbed more than 30% since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran.
A spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute, a trade organization representing U.S. oil firms, said, “Today’s higher prices are driven by global supply, demand and continued uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz and other critical shipping lanes – not by any one company.”
Trump claimed oil prices would “drop through the floor” when the conflict with Iran ends, demanding the industry lower prices at the pump.
“They better cut the retail price, the consumer price,” he said.
While oil plunged after Trump called off a planned “massive attack” on Iran over the weekend, prices at the gas pump tend to lag and do not necessarily follow suit.
On Tuesday, the price of U.S. crude oil fell 5.4%, or $4.36, to $75.98 per barrel. The sharp decline followed comments by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who told CNBC that the U.S. and Iran “may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the strait.”
Oil prices for U.S. crude are down from around $92 a barrel in late July, but still more than 13% higher than when the conflict with Iran started.
Brent crude, the international standard, fell 4.9% to $83.87 per barrel.
A resolution to the Iran conflict, which has lasted more than five months, could give oil shippers the ability to send vessels out of the Persian Gulf, where tankers of oil and other products have been trapped during the fighting.
Shares of major oil companies are up by around 20% to 30% this year, easily outpacing the 13% gains on the S&P 500.
Syria and Iraq are in the final stages of talks on a contract to restore a key oil pipeline between the two countries, a Syrian official said Tuesday, with the work expected to take about three years.
Last month, Damascus signed a memorandum of understanding with Baghdad to revive the Haditha-Banias pipeline for transporting oil from Iraq to Syria’s coast, linking Iraqi production to export markets in the Mediterranean and beyond.
A consortium of three companies, including Chevron, is set to carry out the project.
The U.S. State Department last month welcomed the plan, calling it “of bilateral and regional strategic significance.”
On Tuesday, Syrian Petroleum Company CEO Youssef Qablawi told a press conference at the Rmeilan oil field in the country’s northeast that “negotiations have begun to finalize the contract.”
He expressed hope that the talks would be completed within three months, followed by engineering studies, procurement and restoration work, expected to take “three years at most.”
Syrian state news agency SANA said the pipeline, vital for Iraqi oil exports via the Mediterranean, dates to 1952 but went out of service in 2003 after being damaged during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Qablawi hailed “a vital project” for Syria, putting the pipeline’s capacity at “between 1.5 million and 2 million barrels a day” and saying the project would generate significant revenues.
The prospect of a pipeline link to the Mediterranean via Syria has gained new urgency with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz – a vital maritime route for Gulf oil and gas exports – as a result of the Middle East war.
The closure of Hormuz has hit Iraqi oil exports hard, and in April Baghdad said it began shipping crude through Syria by truck to circumvent the strait.
Syria’s new authorities, who ousted longtime dictator Bashar Assad in December 2024, have been seeking to reboot the country’s economy and revive its infrastructure and institutions after more than a decade of war.
Damascus now controls all the country’s oil and gas fields, after taking over areas previously held by the terrorist group YPG in the north and northeast earlier this year, including Rmeilan.
Texas-based firm HKN Energy is operating the fields in the northeast under a contract signed with Damascus.
At Rmeilan, the company’s president, Mark Rollins, said Tuesday that “this is one of Syria’s most important oil fields,” adding: “Our team has been here on the ground for about two months.”
Qablawi said HKN Energy was in charge of repairing existing wells and drilling new ones.
Syria aims to produce one million barrels of oil per day by 2030 and is seeking to broaden international cooperation on exploration and production.
Qablawi said Syria’s own oil production was currently between 100,000 and 110,000 barrels a day, but was projected to reach 250,000 by the end of next year.
Türkiye’s debt capital market is expected to keep expanding, and the country is likely to remain a major global issuer of sukuk and emerging market debt this year, Fitch Ratings said Tuesday.
This will be driven by high external financing requirements, upcoming maturities, wider fiscal deficits and funding diversification goals, the credit ratings agency said in its debt capital market monitor report covering the first half of 2026.
Fitch said Türkiye’s debt capital market remained largely driven by government securities and grew 9% year-over-year to more than $516 billion at the end of the first half of the year despite volatility related to the Middle East conflict.
The ratings agency said Türkiye became the world’s fifth-largest sukuk market in the first six months and remains one of only three G-20 countries with an active sukuk market.
Outstanding sukuk assets increased 25.8% from a year earlier to more than $41 billion, significantly outpacing the 8% growth recorded in the conventional bond market, Fitch said. Sukuk were about 14% of debt capital market issuance in the first six months, compared to 8% a year ago.
According to the report, Turkish lira-denominated securities accounted for 64% of the country’s debt capital market, while U.S. dollar-denominated instruments represented 33%.
Excluding China, Türkiye ranked as the sixth-largest issuer of U.S. dollar-denominated debt among emerging markets during the first half of the year, with a 7.4% market share.
Fitch forecasts Türkiye’s debt capital market will expand to around $550 billion by the end of 2026.
The agency said banks and corporates are also expected to continue tapping debt markets as financing opportunities arise, although investor sentiment and volatility stemming from regional conflict could weigh on issuance activity.
“Türkiye has low government debt, and sustained access to external financing through periods of stress. However, further regional escalation could weigh on investor sentiment, yields, and liquidity,” said Bashar Al Natoor, global head of Islamic finance at Fitch.
“Foreign investor demand for recent Turkish sovereign U.S. dollar sukuk and bonds remained intact, but foreign participation in the local-currency market is falling.”
Türkiye has joined a small group of countries capable of producing advanced infrared detectors after its top defense contractor developed a new generation of electro-optical sensors for use across a wide range of military platforms.
In a post on X on Tuesday, Aselsan introduced its domestically developed infrared detector family, designed for applications ranging from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and air defense missiles to next-generation combat aircraft and armored vehicles.
The defense electronics maker said it had developed the most critical electro-optical components for strategic systems using national capabilities.
“Leveraging our expertise in microelectronics, we have positioned Türkiye among the select countries capable of developing and manufacturing infrared detectors,” Aselsan said.
According to the company, the new detector family has been developed in both cooled and uncooled configurations to meet different operational requirements.
Aselsan produces radar equipment, drone components and air-defense systems and is Türkiye’s most valuable publicly traded company in market capitalization terms.
Supporting key defense platforms
The domestically developed detectors are already being integrated into several major Turkish defense programs, the company said.
It cited their use in the Yamgöz 200 surveillance system fitted to the Altay main battle tank, the Toygun electro-optical system aboard the Bayraktar Kızılelma unmanned combat aircraft, and sensors used in the Hisar air defense missile system, part of Türkiye’s multilayered Steel Dome air defense architecture.
The infrared detectors are intended to enhance the ability of these platforms to detect, identify and track targets at night and in adverse weather conditions.
Strategic technology
Infrared detectors are among the most critical components in modern electro-optical systems, enabling thermal imaging, target acquisition, missile seekers, reconnaissance payloads and precision targeting systems.
Aselsan said the technology is also used in unmanned aerial systems, missile seeker heads, targeting systems and the electro-optical suite of Türkiye’s indigenous fifth-generation fighter jet Kaan.
Only a limited number of technologically advanced countries currently manufacture high-performance military-grade infrared detectors, making the capability an important benchmark of technological sophistication.
Infrared detectors are also used in a range of civilian sectors, including industrial inspection, security, environmental monitoring and scientific imaging.
The ability to produce such sensors domestically provides strategic advantages by improving surveillance and target detection capabilities in low-visibility environments, including darkness, dust, smoke and fog, while reducing dependence on foreign suppliers for critical defense technologies.
The Turkish capital, Ankara, has witnessed a remarkable performance in exports in the first seven months of 2026 as they surged by nearly a quarter compared to the same period a year earlier to a new record, according to a report on Tuesday.
Ankara’s exports surged 23.4% year-over-year to a record high of $10.81 billion (TL 514.07 billion), marking the capital’s strongest January-July export performance on record.
According to an Anadolu Agency (AA) compilation of Trade Ministry data, Türkiye’s total exports rose 3.4% on a yearly basis to $161.6 billion in the same period.
When looking at the exports from the capital, a notable increase is observed from 2023 to the present.
The overseas shipments, which stood at $6.88 billion in January through July 2023, climbed to $7.59 billion in the same period of 2024 and $8.77 billion in January through July 2025, trade data shows.
U.S. top export destination in 2026
Moreover, a breakdown of Ankara’s exports by destination showed that the U.S. was the top export market in the January-July period, with shipments totaling $865.7 million.
It was followed by Slovakia with $786.7 million, Ukraine with $736.8 million, the U.K. with $725.3 million, and China with $704.9 million, respectively.
Among Ankara’s exports in the first seven months of the year, the electrical and electronics sector ranked first with $1.25 billion.
It was followed by the automotive industry, which shipped goods worth $1.17 billion, chemicals and chemical products with $1.06 billion, and machinery and components with $1.04 billion.
The sector posting the strongest percentage growth in exports during the January-July period was ornamental plants and related products, soaring 487.2% year-over-year.
It was followed by hazelnuts and hazelnut products with 92.4% growth, electrical and electronics with 73.8%, and cement, glass, ceramics and soil products with 35.3%.
British banking giant HSBC maintains its positive view on Turkish equities, saying Tuesday that tensions in the Middle East have delayed, but not derailed, the country’s monetary policy normalization.
In a strategy report, HSBC Global Investment Research said Turkish assets remain attractively valued despite recent market volatility and that they have outperformed the FTSE Emerging Markets Index by around 5% since the start of the year.
The bank noted, however, that most of those gains were recorded in January and February, with the market trading in a relatively narrow range after the outbreak of war following joint U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran in late February.
Higher oil prices have weighed on inflation expectations and prompted the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT) to keep its one-week repo rate unchanged at 37% for four straight months, postponing the start of its monetary easing cycle.
Türkiye’s annual inflation eased for a second consecutive month to 31.75% in July, official data showed Monday.
Policymakers are watching inflation data and geopolitical developments before shifting the rates path.
Despite the delay, HSBC’s economists said interest rate cuts could resume as early as September if domestic economic conditions continue to improve.
HSBC expects Turkish equities to remain range-bound for the next few months before entering a more sustained rally beginning in the fourth quarter of 2026 and continuing through 2027.
4 structural growth themes
The report argues that Türkiye offers several long-term structural investment opportunities that are not solely dependent on macroeconomic conditions or renewed foreign capital inflows.
HSBC identified four sectors with the strongest long-term investment potential:
Defense, supported by rising global military spending and Türkiye’s growing defense exports. Infrastructure and reconstruction, driven by rebuilding efforts in the Eastern Mediterranean, large-scale Gulf infrastructure projects and potential opportunities in Ukraine. AI infrastructure, where Turkish transformer and electrical equipment manufacturers are benefiting from supply bottlenecks and long delivery times in the United States. Aviation, with Istanbul expected to gain market share as airlines increasingly reroute traffic through Gulf aviation hubs.
Valuations remain attractive
HSBC said Turkish equities continue to trade at attractive valuations despite a sharp decline in foreign investor participation.
According to the report, foreign ownership on Borsa Istanbul has fallen from around 65% a decade ago to 33%, while overseas investors withdrew roughly $2 billion from Turkish equities between March and June.
The bank argued that low foreign positioning and inexpensive valuations continue to support its constructive long-term outlook.
HSBC noted that Borsa Istanbul is trading at a 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio of 7.5, while the market’s implied 25% cost of equity appears overly conservative relative to long-term inflation expectations.
The bank reiterated its “overweight” recommendation on Turkish equities.
HSBC also flagged several risks to its outlook, including the potential for domestic political uncertainty if early election discussions emerge.
The report added that investors are monitoring whether Türkiye meets MSCI’s requirement to improve free-float transparency by November, although HSBC said it expects recent regulatory steps to prevent any potential restrictions related to the country’s market classification.
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