French oil major TotalEnergies can succeed in a changing energy market because it offers both renewable power, and oil and gas, to help countries meet their economic goals, CEO Patrick Pouyanne said on Tuesday.

Speaking at Saudi Arabia's annual Future Investment Initiative summit, Pouyanne said his plan to build a 400 megawatt solar plant in the kingdom, alongside its much larger refining and petrochemical projects, helped towards Saudi's Vision 2030 plan to increase renewables and diversify the economy.

"All this is possible because we fundamentally understand what are the national objectives of the kingdom ... We have to be more local, we have to understand deeply what are the requirements to deepen those local partnerships, and this is what we have done," Pouyanne said.

SAUDI PLANS TO EXPAND RENEWABLES

Saudi Arabia hopes to have renewables reach 50% of its power mix in 2030, up from 1.4% in 2023. Total's solar plant is expected to come online in 2027 and will power more than 68,400 homes, with the electricity sold to the Saudi Power Procurement Company via a 25-year agreement.

TotalEnergies last month told investors it would sell off renewables assets that were not in its priority markets - the U.S., Britain, Europe and Brazil - but the company has also adopted a strategy of proposing renewable energy to countries where it has large oil and gas investments, notably with its flagship $27 billion Iraq multi-energy project.

CEO SEES PROJECTS AIDING MORE FOREIGN INVESTMENT

The French major is also building an $11 billion petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia as an expansion of the Satorp refinery it co-owns with state-backed Saudi Aramco .

Pouyanne said those projects enabled more foreign investment, such as that of U.S. chemical company Dow, whose adjacent Sadara chemical complex is a refinery client.

"The Kingdom owns the upstream assets and we are there to bring more value ... I know His Excellency has a dream that one day we can build cars in the Kingdom, but to build cars we need to have all the value chain, including the chemicals to make tires," Pouyanne said.

(Reporting by America Hernandez in Paris; Editing by Jan Harvey and David Holmes)