Transport sector accounts for 23% of energy usage

About 12 million vehicles roam the Kingdom’s roads on a daily basis, consuming 811,000 barrels of oil and accounting for about 23 percent of the total energy consumption in the country.
Experts have estimated that light vehicles comprised 82 percent of all cars plying the roads while the number of vehicles more than 20 years old stood at 2.2 million.
They predicted the number of vehicles to grow to more than 26 million by 2030 and the daily consumption of oil to increase to 1,860,000 barrels a day, if there were no measures undertaken to raise energy efficiency levels.
The National Energy Efficiency Program of the Saudi Center for Energy Efficiency, they added, has cooperated with the concerned parties across the Kingdom to define the reasons for the low level of energy efficiency in the land transportation sector. The program concluded that the low level of fuel efficiency is the reason for energy wastes.
The fuel economy of an automobile in the Kingdom stands at 12 km per liter of fuel, compared to 13 km per liter in the USA, 15 km per liter in China, and 18 km per liter in Europe.
The Saudi Standards, Quality and Metrology Organization (SASO) recently signed memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with a large number of light vehicles manufacturers which use the Saudi corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard. The first stage of the Saudi CAFE will apply on all imported light vehicles starting January 2016.
Saudi CAFÉ’s aim is to improve the fuel economy average in light vehicles in the Kingdom by 4 percent annually, to move from its current level of 12 km per liter of fuel to more than 19 km by 2025.