Saudi Arabia has increased its projections for untapped mineral resources, encompassing phosphate, gold, and rare earths, to $2.5 trillion, a significant upward revision from the 2016 forecast of $1.3 trillion, as indicated by the country’s mining minister. This reflects Riyadh’s strategic emphasis on diversifying its economy away from oil dependence, with a focus on harnessing extensive reserves of phosphate, gold, copper, and bauxite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Saudi Arabian Mining Company, commonly known as Ma\u2019aden and founded in 1997, currently extracts some of these minerals. Mining Minister Bandar Al-Khorayef revealed in an interview with Reuters that they believe the potential of their reserves has expanded by 90%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This increase of $1.2 trillion is attributed to a combination of augmented quantities of existing resources, such as phosphate, the introduction of new resources like rare earths, and a reevaluation of commodity pricing. A formal announcement is scheduled for Wednesday during the Future Minerals Forum (FMF) mining gathering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Al-Khorayef noted that 10% of the upward revision in estimates is due to the inclusion of rare earth minerals, essential for electric vehicles and high-tech products. Saudi Arabia intends to grant over 30 mining exploration licenses to international investors this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, a new regulation will be announced, enabling the mining ministry to allocate larger exploration areas, exceeding 2,000 kilometers for each license, addressing feedback from global players expressing a desire for more substantial awarded areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Riyadh initiated the issuance of licenses to international miners in 2022. Al-Khareef has previously stated that the kingdom aims to progress from exploration and extraction to processing and manufacturing. Saudi Arabia envisions itself as a suitable location for the processing of various minerals, including those mined in Africa. As part of its diversification strategy, the country established the investment fund Manara Minerals, a joint venture between Maaden and the Public Investment Fund (PIF), to acquire overseas assets. Its initial significant venture abroad involved acquiring a 10% stake in Vale’s $26 billion copper and nickel unit last July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saudi Arabia has increased its projections for untapped mineral resources, encompassing phosphate, gold, and rare earths, to $2.5 trillion, a significant upward revision from the 2016 forecast of $1.3 trillion, as indicated by the country’s mining minister. This reflects Riyadh’s strategic emphasis on diversifying its economy away from oil dependence, with a focus on harnessing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mineral-mining"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatmining.com\/mining-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatmining.com\/mining-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatmining.com\/mining-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatmining.com\/mining-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatmining.com\/mining-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatmining.com\/mining-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":775,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatmining.com\/mining-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773\/revisions\/775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatmining.com\/mining-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatmining.com\/mining-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatmining.com\/mining-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatmining.com\/mining-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}