Qatar Petroleum (QP)is the Middle East’s biggest owner of known, tangible, fixed infrastructure, with $69bn-worth of assets.

The Qatari firm is the biggest of seven Middle East companies that feature on US engineering software company Bentley Systems’ Infrastructure 500 report, which lists the largest owners of infrastructure in the world.

The 500 companies, public and private, featured in the list own more than $15.9 trillion-worth of tangible fixed-infrastructure assets. Of that, the seven Middle Eastern companies own assets worth $263bn.

QP ranked at 48 in the full list, ahead of Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), which ranked 62 with $55.5bn of infrastructure and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic), with $44.1bn.

Speaking at Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure conference in London, the company’s chief executive officer Greg Bentley said 72 per cent of companies in the list are in private ownership.

“There are more private owners in the top 500, with a greater value of infrastructure at $9.3 trillion than the public owners. And for the first time there are 289 owners that have been in the top 500 since 2010.”

The US government is the single largest owner of infrastructure, with $342.9bn of assets, followed by State Grid Corporation of China with $236bn. Russia’s Open Joint Stock Company Gazprom comes in third with $228.4bn.