Saudi Arabia’s National Water Company (NWC) plans to spend SR249bn ($66.4bn)on water and wastewater projects in the Kingdom between 2012-20.

Speaking at MEED’s 7th Annual Middle East Wastewater Treatment and Reuse conference in Abu Dhabi on 21 November, NWC chief executive officer Loay al-Musallam said about SR112bn will be spent in capital expenditure (capex) and SR137bn on operating expenditure (opex).

Most of the spending will take place in the wastewater sector. According to Al-Musallam, this is because it is the sector that demands the most improvements.

SR133.9bn will be spent on wastewater projects, of which SR44.8bn will be in capex and SR89.1bn in opex. NWC plans to spend SR115.1bn on water supply projects between 2012-20. Of this figure, SR47.9bn will be spent on capex activities and SR67.2bn on opex.

Al-Musallam told the conference that significant opex is necessary as it is necessary to maintain the assets that are built.