Oil giant Saudi to become solar power centre – oil minister

PARIS (Thomson Financial) – Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, plans to become an expert in another, cleaner, field of energy by investing in solar power, the country’s oil minister said in an interview released today.

“For a country like Saudi Arabia … one of the most important sources of energy to look at and to develop is solar energy,” Ali al-Nuaimi told French oil newsletter Petrostrategies.

He added: “One of the research efforts that we are going to undertake is to see how we make Saudi Arabia a centre for solar energy research and hopefully over the next 30 to 50 years we will be a major megawatt exporter.

“In the same way we are an oil exporter, we can also be an exporter of power.”

Thomson Financial