Dr Sami Alnuaim As a follow up to last month article “The National Kingdom Energy Strategy“, I would like this week to shed some lights on the categories that this strategy must have which include, but not limited to: 1. Energy Sustainability: Sustainability of Energy supplies (Oil & Gas) supporting national and international economic growth is a must for Saudi Arabia. This noble objective is currently met through the successful implementation of the Kingdom Petroleum Strategy which is overseen and managed by the Supreme Petroleum Council & the Ministry of Petroleum & Minerals Resources and executed mainly by Saudi Aramco. This strategy ensures a permanent and secured supply of oil and gas including what is called the Kingdom Additional Oil Production Capacity that the Kingdom guaranteed to preserve to offset and make up any sudden interruption to the global oil supplies due to any reason, political or technical. As we all know, the Kingdom currently keeps 2.5-3.5 million barrels of oil as an additional capacity on top of its current production (estimated to be 9 million barrels per day) to be pumped into the market in a very short time if needed. This successful and appreciated strategy provides a kind of global oil supply security, dilutes any oil market speculators' price manipulation and provides relative oil price stability. 2. Energy Efficiency: As appears in several-energy related studies, the current Kingdom energy efficiency is very low as compared to many developed and developing countries. This low efficiency includes the electricity generation, transmission, and use. This challenge is currently been addressed by several government and public organizations and the results are yet to be realized. However, no Kingdom wide integrated and specific energy efficiency goals are set and monitored yet. 3. Energy Conservation: The current Kingdom energy waste is well recognized. A lot of the energy waste is attributed mainly to the cheap energy, lack of energy conservation culture, lack of electrical & building energy efficiency codes and lack of reliable public transportation systems. Several energy conservation ideas are being developed including promoting energy conservation culture, future establishment of reliable public transport systems in major cities, and enforcing pro appliances/building energy efficiency standards. It is important to say here that these are good but scattered efforts undertaken by many organizations with no integrated plan that can be periodically monitored. 4. Energy Diversity: The current Saudi energy mix constitutes of only oil and gas. To meet the exponentially increasing local energy demand, more oil and gas need to be discovered, developed, produced, refined and pumped into the local market which would require a lot of investment. If nothing is done to address the energy efficiency and waste as it stands today, the Kingdom hydrocarbon resources oil export capability will be rapidly jeopardized. Diversifying energy resources in the electricity generation and water desalination using Solar, Nuclear, Wind and Hydro is a must for Saudi Arabia to protect its oil export capability. Although solid plans for the Nuclear Electricity generation is been developed by King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, but currently there is no integrated plan that integrates this with the existing conventional and future alternative sources of energy mix. We would like to see one integrated energy mix map for Saudi Arabia for next 30-50 Years. 5. Environmental Responsibility: The environmental resistibility that Saudi Arabia has committed to can be addressed by improving energy efficiency, promoting energy conservation and diversifying energy sources towards more clean energy sources. These will significantly reduce the fossil fuel burning resulting in a drastic reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases which damage our environment. Although there are isolated scattered efforts related to the environment stewardship, currently, there is no plan with specific measurable emission reduction that can be monitored. 6. Sustainable Energy Development: We need also to strengthen the Kingdom universities energy programs and R&D activities related to both conventional and alternative energy sources to have a sustainable energy industry. An integrated energy strategy detailing, integrating and coordinating all the related efforts in the above 6 categories has increasingly become a social and economical necessity to expedite the benefits, minimize redundancy and develop a sustainable energy industry that keeps the Kingdom current global leadership position as the most reliable energy supplier.
