Method

Applies to MENA Review. Last reviewed 3 September 2026.

This page explains how the datasets on MENA Review are built, what a source link means, what verified-as-at means, and what is deliberately not computed.

The provenance model

A dataset is a table of rows. A row is one tracked thing: a project, a facility, a chokepoint in a given week. Each row is a set of fields, and each field holds two things: the value and the address of the public page that states that value. There is no field without a source. A value we cannot source is left blank rather than estimated.

Verified as at

Each row carries a verified-as-at timestamp. It is the last moment a desk checked the row's sources and either confirmed the values or changed them. It does not mean the values are true today; it means that at that moment the linked sources stated them. Rows are rechecked on the dataset's stated cadence and when a new source appears.

Revisions

Every change to a row is stored as a revision listing the fields that changed, the time, and where available the source that prompted the change. The revision history is public on every row page and across the dataset, and a changed-since view shows what moved after any date. Nothing is edited silently and nothing is deleted; a row that no longer applies is retired and stays in the history.

What is not computed

Some datasets show a derived field, for example the difference in quarters between an announced date and a recorded status date. For entries located in the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia no derived field is computed and no visual encodes a gap. Those rows show the announced value, the announced date, the current recorded status and the status date, each with its source. The reader has the dates; the title draws no conclusion.

Across every dataset, status values are plain text and are never colour-coded, and no row carries a score, grade, ranking or adjective.

Sources

Preferred sources are the primary documents: company announcements, exchange and regulatory filings, operator statements, official statistics portals and machine-readable public datasets. Trade press is used where it is the only public record of a value. Source pages are linked as they were at the time of verification; if a page later changes or disappears the revision history still shows what it said.

Reuse

Datasets are published under CC BY 4.0. Download the CSV from any dataset page; it contains a paired source column for every field. Attribution to MENA Review is the only condition.

Errors

If a value is wrong, tell us through the contact form with the row address and a source. Verified corrections are applied as a new revision the same working day.