Until recently, it was one of the Gulf region's paradoxes that domestic equity investors had little access to its colossal oil and gas resources.
At the same time, a decade of dismal underperformance by international energy companies has finally been succeeded by a good year and a bit.
Dubai Electricity and Water Company (Dewa) will be the latest local company to capitalise on a positive trend.
For a long time, investors in Gulf stock exchanges had very little choice of energy-related businesses: mostly, Taqa, the power utility, and a non-state petroleum producer, Dana Gas, in Abu Dhabi, a few Saudi petrochemical companies such as Sabic and Sipchem, Qatari fuel distributor Woqod and some oil services stocks. Banks, telecoms and real estate dominated the benchmark indexes.
Since the initial public offerings of Adnoc Distribution in 2017 and Saudi Aramco in late 2019, things have changed.
Last year, Adnoc Drilling and fertiliser joint venture Fertiglobe listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, and Saudi power and water developer Acwa Power on the Tadawul in Saudi Arabia.