Utilities
From The Report: Saudi Arabia 2020
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The government is moving at pace to expand energy and water output to meet growing demand from businesses and individual consumers. Saudi Arabia’s ambitious plans to upgrade its utilities networks, while aligning more closely to market prices, make the Kingdom an increasingly attractive proposition for investors. There is an established framework for private participation and a track record of government will to increase the role played by the private sector in the Kingdom’s transformation towards cleaner and renewable sources of energy, according to targets outlined in Vision 2030. This chapter contains interviews with Mohammed Al Mowkley, CEO, National Water Company; and Khaled Al Qureshi, CEO, Saudi Water Partnership Company.

Articles from this Chapter

Overview

Power up: New sources of water and energy emerge to meet rising demand
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Saudi Arabia’s utilities sector will undergo significant changes in the coming years as the country works to reduce the number of barrels of oil it burns to create electricity, as well as the amount of drinking water it consumes. Beyond that, the sector is shifting amid subsidy reforms, the gradual privatisation of public assets, improvements in sanitation practices and plans to expand the use of desalination. Vision 2030 – the Kingdom’s blueprint for social and economic reform – also…

Interview

Optimising operations: Mohammed Al Mowkley, CEO, National Water Company (NWC), on improving efficiency through privatisation and leveraging local human resources
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Interview:Mohammed Al Mowkley In what ways would the privatisation of water infrastructure in the north-western region improve efficiency in the long term? MOHAMMED AL MOWKLEY: This is the first in a series of projects that are part of Saudi National Water Strategy 2030’s distribution sector restructuring and privatisation programme. This programme involves merging the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture’s 13 directorates and the four NWC city business units into six regional…

Analysis

In good hands: Shift towards privatisation underscores investment opportunities in water and power production
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Saudi Arabia’s government has indicated it wants to raise as much as $200bn through the privatisation of state-owned assets, with one of its largest desalination plants among the first targets for disposal. The Ras Al Khair cogeneration plant has the capacity to produce more than 1m cu metres of desalinated water daily, and in 2018 the authorities announced it would be included in privatisation efforts. Indeed, it is anticipated that the plant will generate $7bn of the $10bn that is expected…

Interview

Better integration: Khaled Al Qureshi, CEO, Saudi Water Partnership Company, on how technology and the private sector help to optimise efficiency
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Interview:Khaled Al Qureshi In what ways can the privatisation of state-owned assets increase efficiency in service provision? KHALED AL QURESHI: The Saudi Water Partnership Company relies exclusively on the private sector to finance, design, construct, operate and maintain new water-related projects, with the aim to meet future water requirements. In late 2019, a strategic reservoir and transmission pipelines were added to the mix, and this is the first time in the world that such pipelines…

Analysis

Solar powered: Diversifying the energy mix through solar and wind projects
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Saudi Arabia has significant potential in renewable energy, and has worked in recent years to harness the power of the sun and wind to generate electricity. These efforts are not only environmentally friendly, but they also preserve valuable supplies of oil and gas that can instead be converted into value-added products or exported abroad. Broadening the electricity mix is also important, given that energy consumption rose 60% in the decade leading to 2019. Demand is expected to increase…