Robin Mills, CEO

Books by Robin:

Robin established Qamar Energy in 2015 to meet the need for regionally-based Middle East energy insight and project delivery. He is an expert on energy strategy and economics, described by Foreign Policy magazine as “one of the energy world’s great minds”.

Prior to this, he led major consulting assignments for the EU in Iraq, and for a variety of international oil companies on Middle East business development, integrated gas and power generation and renewable energy.

Robin worked for a decade for Shell, concentrating on new business development in the UAE, Qatar, Iraq, Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, when he was described as the “Shell expert on Iran”.

He subsequently worked for six years with Dubai Holding and the Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), where he advanced business development efforts in the Middle East energy sector, including major gas import schemes for Dubai and upstream developments in Iraq, Qatar, Yemen, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Algeria and elsewhere.

He is the author of two books, The Myth of the Oil Crisis, which evaluates global long-term oil supply, and Capturing Carbon, the first comprehensive overview of carbon capture and storage for the non-specialist. He is the columnist on energy and environmental issues at The National newspaper (Abu Dhabi), and comments widely on energy issues in the media, including Foreign Policy, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, CNN, CNBC Arabiya, BBC, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, Sky News and others.

Robin also authored a ground-breaking study Sunrise in the Desert: Solar becomes commercially viable in MENA, on solar power competitiveness in the Gulf (with PWC/Emirates Solar Industry Association) as well as Under the Mountains: Kurdish Oil and Regional Politics for the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and Risky Routes: Energy Transit in the Middle East. He has been Non-Resident Fellow for Energy at the Brookings Institution. He holds a first-class degree in Geology from the University of Cambridge, and speaks Arabic, Farsi, Dutch and Norwegian.

Dina Guirguis, Legal

Consultant

Dina is a U.S. qualified Egyptian American attorney with substantial experience both in legal and policy roles.  Dina brings a wide range of experience, having assumed numerous regional positions as in-house counsel for multinationals, managing all corporate legal areas from contracts to compliance. 

Previously, Dina practiced dispute resolution in construction and energy practices with a major U.S. law firm in Dubai, and compliance and regulatory law at a leading global firm in Washington, D.C. Dina also practiced in international arbitration, assisting the firm in the case of EDF Services Limited v. Romania before the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal at the World Bank. Dina also assumed numerous policy roles in Washington, D.C., including as advocacy director for the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), and as fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP).

Dina also acquired further legal experience in Egypt, where she practiced at an international firm in Cairo, providing legal services to national and multinational companies operating and/or seeking to operate in the Middle East, with a focus on acquisitions, joint venture, commercial and corporate agreements, and legal due diligence. In addition to the practice of law,

She widely authored and published numerous articles and policy pieces on political and legal reform in the Middle East. 

Dina is fluent in English, Arabic and French.  She graduated with Honors from both Wellesley College and Vanderbilt University Law School (respectively).  She is certified to practice law in the United States and is certified in International Legislative Drafting by the International Law Institute.

Maryam Salman, Consultant

Maryam is Qamar Energy’s Senior Consultant for Middle East energy markets. She leads Qamar’s commercial and economic consulting portfolio in the oil and gas, renewables, and new energies sectors, and is a professional in strategy development and regulatory design for the sustainability and energy transformation segments. She is the co-author of Powering Iraq: Challenges Facing the Electricity Sector in Iraq for the Al Bayan Center for Planning & Studies, Renewable Energy Market Analysis: GCC 2019 for IRENA, Renewable Energy Markets: GCC 2023 for IRENA, and was a supporting author for the flagship report, The UAE’s Role in the Global Hydrogen Economy, prepared on behalf of ADNOC, Mubadala, ADQ, and the UAE Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure.

Maryam has led the development of proprietary gas, renewables, and hydrogen cost evolution models to 2050 with a focus on cross-sectoral decarbonisation solutions, and has been at the forefront of developing large-scale strategic projects to meet the region’s energy needs, including assessing LNG and gas imports, future hydrogen trade, and acquisitions of oil and gas assets in the region and surrounding countries. She has worked with the region’s energy leadership to advise on future energy policy and direction, and achieve action on the development of cross-border gas pipeline projects (Iraq, Turkey, Kurdistan), exploration, and major renewables and carbon capture, storage, and use developments.

Prior to joining Qamar, she was a journalist with the Times of Oman and the Al Rawahy Group of Companies in Oman, covering clientele including the Oman Chamber of Industry & Commerce, the Ministry of Tourism, the Oman India Fertiliser Company, the Oman Airports Management Company, and Jindal Shadeed. She initiated and spearhead efforts to widen industry coverage of energy capital markets, national and regional environmental legislation, and company-specific issues, and routinely competed with other local and national outlets to produce high-impact, authoritative information.

Maryam writes for international media outlets and has been a speaker for the Energy Industries Council, the Derasat Foundation, EnergyRisk, Rudaw, Enuit, and others. She is a Gold Medallist in Mass Media & Mass Communication from the University of Delhi, and a summa cum laude graduate from the University of Wollongong as a Master of International Studies, with specialisation in Middle East energy security and foreign policy.

She knows 5 languages, including Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, and French.

Ahmed A. Zaheer D. B.

Consultant