All the mining plans of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia wants to encourage local and foreign investment in its mining sector. The goal is to encourage economic diversification from oil. All the details
Saudi Arabia presented an initiative to develop mining exploration and invited investors to take advantage of the new opportunities offered by the country.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE MINISTER OF INDUSTRY
The initiative – as ZAWYA , a specialized portal on the Middle East writes – was presented by the Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources, Bandar Al-Khorayef, during a visit to a mining site near Riyadh, the kingdom's capital.
Khorayef said his ministry has held tenders for the Khanikiya mine site.
WHAT THE MINISTER OF INDUSTRY SAID
Khorayef said that "this initiative inaugurates a new phase" in the exploitation of Saudi mineral resources and that it aims to attract "qualitative" investments by increasing spending on exploration operations. He then anticipated that the Riyadh government will offer several new sites to investors.
"This initiative will allow the Kingdom to find suitable partners in exploration and to ensure long-term growth and investment in the mining industry," he added.
VISION 2030
The focus on the mining industry is part of the “Vision 2030” project, that is the strategy for the economic diversification of Saudi Arabia, today extremely linked to oil revenues. Reducing this dependence is a critical need for Riyadh, because the energy transition plans approved by many governments around the world provide for a substantial decrease in the consumption of crude oil and fossil fuels.
Saudi Arabia is the largest oil exporter in the world.
THE GOALS OF SAUDI ARABIA
The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Industry, Saleh Al-Okail, had recently declared that Saudi Arabia aims to attract investments – both local and foreign – in its mining sector of nearly 30 billion dollars by 2025. The areas assigned in concession companies will be extended up to 100 square kilometers.
THE DATA
In 2020, mining operations guaranteed Saudi Arabia in revenues of $ 1.3 billion. According to estimates by the Ministry of Industry, this figure is set to double by 2030. For the same year, the contribution of the entire sector to the national GDP will be 76.5 billion dollars, four times as much as current levels.
According to government projections, in 2030 the sector will allow the creation of over 200 thousand direct and indirect jobs.
THE MINING INVESTMENT LAW
In June 2020, Saudi Arabia approved a new mining law to open the domestic industry to foreign investors: to date, in fact, the only operator in the sector is monopolized by Saudi Ma'aden, which is publicly owned.
The country mainly mines gold and copper (a fundamental metal for the energy transition); in recent years the production of aluminum and phosphates has grown. Saudi Arabia has significant – and largely unexploited – deposits including bauxite and uranium .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/arabia-saudita-estrazione-mineraria/ on Mon, 03 Jan 2022 13:29:18 +0000.