Saudi Gazette RIYADH - The new water and electricity tariff is aimed at rationalizing consumption but about 87 percent of the bills will not be affected by the new price increase, Minister of Water and Electricity Abdullah Al-Hossain said. "The Kingdom is among the highest electricity consumers in the world with the consumption per individual per year reaching 8,000 KW/H," he told a press conference in Riyadh on Monday following the announcement of the general budget. Hossain said the Kingdom comes third in the world after the US and Canada in water consumption. "Everywhere in the world the individual's daily consumption of water is about 83 liters while in the Kingdom it is 250 liters despite scarcity in the vital fluid," he said. The minister noted that the water consumption in the Kingdom is rapidly increasing despite scarcity and high cost of production and said under the new water tariff, about 52 percent of the houses will not spend more than SR30 every month on water. Addressing the conference, Khaled Al-Faleh, Aramco's chairman of the board of directors, hoped that the oil prices which went down during 2015 would go back to their normal course next year. "The Kingdom is moving from an economy depending on a single source of income which is oil to an economy of diversified income sources," he said. Faleh said for the first time in 10 years, the energy prices, namely water and electricity, were increased. "The rise will not be at once but will be effected gradually over five years. Regardless, the energy prices in the Kingdom will remain to be the lowest in the world," he said. Faleh said the energy prices in the Kingdom are less by about 40 percent compared to the other GCC countries. "In 1990, the Kingdom's daily consumption of energy including petrol and gas was a million barrels which have risen by five folds to reach 4.8 million barrels now," he said.
