Saudi Arabia’s National Water Company (NWC) is planning to spend $38.4bn on water projects over the next 16 years.

Speaking at MEED’s Middle East Water and Wastewater Conference 2012 in Abu Dhabi, Nasser al-Amiri, head of the treated sewage effluent (TSE) department at NWC, outlined expenditure plans that call for annual investment of $2.4bn until 2028.

The spending will include an average of $600m a year on TSE projects. NWC is planning to spend SR5.6bn ($1.5bn) on TSE projects in three major cities over the next four years.

NWC will invest SR3bn on TSE projects in Riyadh over the next 3-4 years, and SR2bn in Jeddah over the same period. The water company will invest SR600m in Mecca during the same timeframe.

NWC currently has agreements to supply 500,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d) of TSE, which is expected to have reached 700,000 cm/d by the end of 2012.

NWC was formed in 2008 and currently operates in Riyadh, Jeddah, Mecca and Taif. The company is targeting the takeover of operations in 15 Saudi cities in the next five years.