Jasim Husain Thabet, Group CEO and MD of TAQA
Jasim Husain Thabet, who pursued his Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering degree from St. Martin’s University, Washington, United States, has been at the helm of TAQA. The Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, PJSC is an energy holding company of the government of Abu Dhabi, UAE. TAQA is one of Abu Dhabi’s flagship companies, established in the year 2005, that has a pivotal role in aiding the economic strategy of the Emirates and is a diverse utility and energy group that has its headquarters located in Abu Dhabi. Initially, he had begun his career in offshore operations at the globe’s leading oil-producing company, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). TAQA is currently the largest public company in the EMEA region with a market capitalization value of around $46 billion and is one of the top 10 integrated utility companies.
Past conquests
Jasim has been the Group Chief Executive Officer and the Managing Director of TAQA since July 2020. He has been an energy industry veteran for over two decades and was elected to TAQA’s Board of Directors in the year 2019. Prior to his association with TAQA, he served as a Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Abu Dhabi Power Corporation. In relation to this industry, he helped in accelerating the portfolio of assets of the company throughout the value chain to aid the transformation of the power and water industry in the UAE just within a period of 15 months. Jasim had also worked with the National Central Cooling Company as a Chief Executive Officer wherein he had leveraged the capacity expansion and revenue growth. During his tenure of six years at the organization, he successfully developed an advanced model of sustainable growth which saw over 50% growth in consolidated capacity along with a 28% hike in revenues in the UAE.
His past experiences also include his association with Mamoura Diversified Global Holding PJSC as its Vice President and Senior Project Manager at General Electric Power Systems.
Jasim and his role in TAQA
Since Jasim’s association with TAQA, the company has been working in hands with the Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) and has been successful in raising around $700.8 million in January 2022 through the first green senior secured bonds which are in turn linked to the solar plants. Just in one year’s time span, TAQA has gained around $1.6 billion in profits. There has been a rise in the profit margins by 46% as compared to the previous years. Apart from TAQA, Jasim has also been serving on the boards of the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Etihad Aviation Group, and Abu Dhabi Ports and all of them has witnessed a drastic change in the rate of growth.
TAQA and its goals: present and future
Since its inception in 2005, TAQA has invested in water and power generation along with its transmission and distribution. Outside the realm of the UAE, it is now located in several countries such as Canada, Ghana, India, Iraq, Morocco, Oman, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and the USA, and the assets of the company are valued at almost AED 191 billion. With regards to its performance in 2021, TAQA has quite seamlessly surpassed all its contemporaries and has boosted itself in an efficient manner by recovering the commodity prices. This shows that the revenue earned by Group has reached up to AED 45.7 billion which is almost 11% higher than the previous year. This increase is recorded typically due to the higher commodity prices in the oil and gas sector.
To keep up with their ongoing profit percentages, TAQA has devised a 2030 strategy which they unveiled in 2021, that is aimed at more sustainable and profitable growth of the Group. TAQA has an aim to increase its gross power capacity to 30 GW by 2030 from the 18 GW that it is now. This will also include the retiring of 8 GW of older power plant technology and offset by the existing pipeline of more than 9 GW of new, clean capacity. Apart from it, TAQA is also committed to jumping the bandwagon to be recognized as the low carbon power and water champion in not only Abu Dhabi but also globally as well. With their expertise, imminent skillset, and financial power, they aim to achieve the 2030 strategy to be in coherence with the objectives of UAE and its decarbonization aims.
New capacity would also be emerging from the advanced clean energy technology such as the efficient gas-fired power plants and other renewable resources that are focused on reducing emissions by 30% through modern photovoltaic technology. With respect to water desalination as well, 50% of the existing plants will retire as the alignment has shifted more towards reverse osmosis (RO) technology. This RO capability will increase by two-thirds by 2030. The immediate focus is to build a substantial UAE- based infrastructure that would build a network through projects and also invest a whopping AED 40 billion to grow the regulated asset base by 2030.
TAQA’s vision and mission
At TAQA, their strategical goals are set keeping in mind their strong purpose:
“Powering a thriving future by efficiently providing sustainable and reliable energy and water to unleash the unlimited potential of people and places.”
The clear vision of TAQA in the future is to:
“To provide the clean power and water that governments, businesses, and consumers need for a sustainable and successful life.”
And their mission is also to:
“Be a low carbon power and water champion.”
Improvisations in TAQA and its impact
Jasim has helped in creating an ecosystem that would act as a platform for continual value generation which is in alignment with their business models and capital structure. This had contributed to widening the scope of growth and its related opportunities while permitting the investors to share in the cash flows from regulated and long-term assets. TAQA’s domestic growth strategy is pretty much interlinked with the UAE’s national strategy for energy and water supply. Due to this factor, Jasim has anticipated a hike in the growth graph along with increased deployment of new clean energy generation with high-efficiency RO technology. This will simply help in creating worth in the market and reward TAQA’s shareholders with an improved dividend policy.
Since Jasim’s involvement with TAQA has broadened the perspective and has been selectively pursuing international growth. Looking at it from a narrower perspective, it would imply driving efficiency towards customer satisfaction, but the wider perspective showcases that it is aimed at protecting their financial strength and anchoring TAQA’s practices in consonance with Abu Dhabi’s principles. Jasim has been successful in tactfully improving the workforce’s capabilities while aiming at achieving its personal objective of becoming more safer, more sustainable, collaborative, and innovative group.
