Hard-To-Assess Third Parties In Energy And Infrastructure Projects: A Middle East Perspective

(MENAFN- Mid-East Info) You know how, when you move into a huge, old house with lots of rooms, it can be really hard to keep track of every single key? Well, for established businesses, managing third-party risks is often just like that. It might be thought that because these companies are so big, they have everything under control, but the opposite is often true. Hundreds of different“keys” (vendors and partners) have been given out over the years, and it's easily forgotten which key opens which“side door” to the valuable things inside. You might think the main vault is protected, but what about the little window left open by the contractor who fixed the porch last month?

This analogy reflects a universal problem: large, enterprise vendors are often hard-to-assess third parties. They may be unresponsive to individual security questionnaires, leaving organizations with critical gaps in their assessment data. This backlog of unassessed vendors slows down third-party risk management (TPRM) programs and creates unmanaged risk across industries. The Unique Blind Spots In Middle East Projects

This universal challenge is particularly acute in the massive oil, gas, and construction sectors across the MENA region. These industries are known for extremely large capital projects, critical national infrastructure, and reliance on complex, global supply chains.

• The“Project-Based” Vendor Flurry Energy and infrastructure projects rely heavily on specialized, temporary groups and joint ventures. A massive refinery upgrade, for instance, could involve an international engineering firm, local construction teams, European equipment suppliers, and temporary labor providers. The rapid cycling of vendors makes due diligence a high-pressure exercise that quickly outpaces annual reviews.

• Geopolitical And Regulatory Variability Operating across multiple jurisdictions introduces extra layers of compliance risk. Partners must be vetted not only for operational quality but also for adherence to strict anti-bribery and sanctions rules-made harder when ownership and political links aren't transparent.

• The Specialization Gap Vendors in advanced drilling or liquefaction technology are highly specialized, often small firms with proprietary knowledge. While technically indispensable, their cybersecurity or financial maturity may lag. Operators face a difficult trade-off between project necessity and risk tolerance.

Summing Up

To succeed, companies are realizing that a passive, checklist-based approach is no longer sufficient. TPRM must evolve from a compliance function into a strategic enabler of safe, on-schedule, and compliant project delivery. However, chasing vendors for responses is no longer a sustainable approach.

The modern solution is collaborative risk intelligence: shared libraries of attested vendor assessments that allow organizations to instantly access validated assessment data for the world's largest and most unresponsive vendors. By leveraging these resources, companies can eliminate the third-party due diligence backlog. Furthermore, by understanding a vendor's security posture through validated assessments, they can make more informed decisions to manage third party access

This strategic commitment to transparency and shared intelligence is how leading energy and infrastructure firms-and global enterprises alike-maintain resilience in the face of immense operational complexity.

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