RIYADH — The Ministry of Energy, in cooperation with the National Mining Committee at the Federation of Saudi Chambers (FSC), will build a national network to supply natural gas in industrial zones in all cities across the Kingdom. This will be in accordance with a well-thought out time bound plan in order to achieve the Kingdom's Vision 2030 to support the mining sector and raise its contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP). According to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, the National Mining Committee is carrying out a survey to measure the industrial sector's need to use natural gas in the manufacturing process. The National Industrial Development and Logistics Program (NIDLP), one of the programs of the Kingdom's Vision 2030, aims to transform the country into a leading industrial power and a global logistics platform by maximizing the value achieved from the mining and energy sectors. It also focuses on the axes of local content and the Fourth Industrial Revolution to contribute significantly to maximize the economic impact and diversify target sectors, as well as to sustain the growth of those sectors and achieve entrepreneurship, with creating an attractive investment environment therein. According to the newspaper, the federation informed all chambers of commerce and industry in various regions of the Kingdom about filling up a special questionnaire to facilitate preparation of the survey to measure the industrial sector's need for natural gas in their manufacturing operations. It emphasized that the data is for the purpose of survey only, and will not be shared for any reason with any other party. The questionnaire contains knowledge about the amount of natural gas use in production processes and their advantages in addition to the incentives that contribute to raising the level of use. One of the major current obstacles that limit or impede the use of natural gas is in its manufacturing. Saudi Arabia had recently announced new discoveries of natural gas fields in different parts of the country. Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman revealed that Saudi Aramco was able to discover fields in the central region, the Empty Quarter and the northern and eastern borders. The Kingdom pumps more than 103.3 million cubic feet of gas per day. The discoveries announced by the Kingdom qualifies it to provide gas and support energy security globally, and reinforces the Kingdom's richness in various resources at a time when there is a shortage in the supplies of gas at the global level.
