Saudi Arabia Is Running Out of Water
19th February 2016
Not that they had all that much to start with.
Saudi Arabia has started taxing water for residents to try and address the soaring cost of debt as oil revenues decline.
The water tariff comes amid warnings that Saudi Arabia’s groundwater will run out in the next 13 years.
February 19th, 2016 at 10:59
Amerada Hess proposed filling oil tankers with fresh water for the return trip to Saudi Arabia back in the ’70s. They even developed a small treatment system that would clean all the residual petroleum out of the water once it got to port. (The system is currently located in Corpus Christi, Texas and is being used to clean up contaminated groundwater from an old Hess refinery site.)
The Saudis were “less than impressed”, according to the engineers who worked on the system. In fact, they seemed to be rather insulted that the Americans would try to sell them water. Mind you, before the big oil embargo of the Jimmuh Carter years, water cost more per barrel in Saudi than what they were getting for oil.