While the outside world is concerned about Saudi Arabia’s transportation of more and more crude oil from the east to safe export ports in the west, Saudi Arabia has already set its sights on another area-battery energy storage. Global demand for battery storage has grown significantly, and Saudi Arabia hopes to take this opportunity to expand local production capacity while freeing up more oil for export.
In 2022, Saudi Arabia held the “Future Minerals Forum” and announced that it would create the mining center of the future. The forum has since been held annually with the aim of attracting investment in the country’s mineral resources. Saudi Arabia is rich in mineral resources, not only battery minerals such as lithium and vanadium, but also other metals such as copper that are critical to the energy transition. In fact, in Saudi Arabia’s “2030 vision”, metals and minerals are an important direction to achieve economic diversification. Revenues from the Saudi mining sector are expected to reach $64 billion by 2030. In other words, the world’s largest exporter of crude oil is betting on the energy transition.
Right now is a critical moment for the development of transformation-related industries. With the tight supply of oil and natural gas in the Middle East, the motivation of countries to find alternative energy sources is further enhanced, and alternative energy sources cannot do without batteries for stable operation.
In fact, the analysis and forecast of the past two years have shown that the global battery storage market is about to usher in rapid growth. According to the forecast of Ruide Energy, between 2024 and 2040, the global battery energy storage installed capacity will increase nine times. Of course, this growth also depends on the price trend of raw materials. At the moment, the price factor is becoming more important, because the energy crisis is making those countries that are still promoting the energy transition-especially European countries-fiscal constraints.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia itself is also actively building battery energy storage facilities. With the advancement of photovoltaic power generation projects, Saudi Arabia aims to achieve 48 gigawatt-hours of energy storage capacity by 2030. As a result, Saudi Arabia would need less oil for power generation and have more oil to export.
