RIYADH — Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman said that the area of NEOM project exceeds the size of medium-sized countries. The minister made these remarks in a press conference on the sidelines of signing a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in the fields of energy between the ministry and the NEOM company. Prince Abdulaziz stressed the importance of diligent and serious work on this huge vital project in the Kingdom, which realizes a major target within the goals of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. “NEOM and its parallel projects will provide large number of jobs in diverse new sectors in the Kingdom. The Saudi leadership’s interest in the NEOM project spurs serious work, as well as hope among citizens about the remarkable achievements set to bring out by the project,” he said. The minister stressed the importance of dealing seriously with NEOM’s targets. “We all, as citizens, hope that the NEOM project will accomplish all its goals on time, and if we want to do so, we have no choice but to work hard to accomplish the ambition regarding this project.” He said that NEOM aims to produce 15 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030, which is equivalent to a quarter of the Kingdom’s electricity consumption at peak times at present. “The renewable energy projects in NEOM will be the least expensive in the world, with the available geographical location of NEOM to generate renewable energies, which will reduce the cost of hydrogen and the cost of electricity,” the minister added. Speaking on the occasion, Nazmi Al-Nasr, CEO of the NEOM project, reiterated that NEOM would work completely with renewable energy. “The ministry is a pioneer in establishing, building and planning renewable energy projects in the Kingdom and that is the outcome of the important agreement for cooperation in this field,” he said. “NEOM has completed in the past all studies, and according to these studies we have learned the best places for sun and wind energies in NEOM, and we took a long time with the studies to identify these areas,” he added.