Ahead of the Future Minerals Summit set to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 11-13 January, 2022, IM Editorial Director Paul Moore had the opportunity to talk with the Vice-Minister of Mining Affairs for the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources of the Kingdom Saudi Arabia, His Excellency Khalid Al-Mudaifer, who also happens to be the ex-CEO of state mining company Ma’aden.
Technology is playing a great role in mines worldwide – overall, he sees this as central to the world achieving its future economy potential but in a sustainable way: “I think one thing that most people are agreed on is that the future will actually see more intensive mining for certain commodities than in the past, and that for the world to decarbonise, we need more minerals, not less. To produce these minerals sustainably, using the latest technology in mining and mineral processing is a major advantage. This is particularly the case when it comes to optimising energy and water use. And the same applies downstream in the metal industry. Having said that while in mining there have been major strides in the past decade – autonomous trucks, optimised processing, more efficient engines, it has still not seen some of the level of disruptive change that has been seen in other industries such as automotive and oil & gas. And in increasing minerals supply to the world, we also need to utilise resources better – mining more safely and more sustainably, and here technology is also playing a major role. Plus mines of the future need to be more attractive propositions for young people to work in. Last but not least we need new mineral deposit discoveries to enable new mines, which can be built with these disruptive technologies.”
Vice-Minister of Mining Affairs for the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources of the Kingdom Saudi Arabia, His Excellency Khalid Al-Mudaifer
Of course, Saudi Arabia does already have a mining industry through mines like Ad Duwayhi and Jabal Sayid plus a large phosphate and industrial minerals sector. The learnings from these mines will also help the domestic mining industry in terms of skills and experience as the pace of mining development in the country ramps up. Al-Mudaifer commented: “I think our metal operations such as our gold and copper mines as well as our non-metallic mines such as our phosphate rock operations that mine nearly 30 Mt/y are already using the latest available processing routes but we are seeing that there are still gains to be had in areas like laser, XRF and gamma-based ore sorting for preconcentration, and in using more efficient blasting technology based on big data analytics for effective rock fragmentation. Plus our mines are making use of proximity detection technologies to make mobile fleet operations safer. These are just some examples of technologies already being put in place. Further upstream I think we can also benefit a lot from the use of AI as well as satellite imagery in mineral exploration.”
The largest operation in development in Saudi Arabia is Ma’aden’s Mansourah & Massarah gold mine: “it continues to progess with some COVID-19 related delays but it is still on track to start operations in 2022 and reach full production in 2023.” This one mine is expected to contribute one quarter of gold production towards Ma’aden’s strategic target of 1 Moz per year by 2025. The resources are being developed as conventional open pit mines while the plant will employ Carbon-In-Leach and Pressure Oxidation technology for gold production. Some key contracts have already been awarded such as Jac Rijk Al-Rushaid Contracting & Services Co providing operational mining services and Wärtsilä supplying the engineering, equipment, and technical advisory for a 44 MW hybrid engine & solar power plant. A Larsen & Toubro/Metso Outotec consortium has the EPC contract for the processing plant.
Then there are other projects in development such as KEFI Gold and Copper’s Jibal Qutman gold project, with a Mineral Resource estimate of 28.4 million tonnes at 0.80g/t gold, containing 733,045 oz. It has completed a PFS aiming at a CIL operation but has potential for initial heap leach of oxides. KEFI is also advancing the Hawiah gold-copper project which is at PFS stage and recently announced it has been issued with the Al Godeyer and Al Godeyer East Exploration Licences.
Despite these mining projects why has the mining industry in Saudi not developed faster? “I think there has been first a misconception that we are only focused on oil & gas and petrochemicals plus a lack of awareness of the deposits we have. Now, our country’s Vision 2030 has identified mining as a target for transformation and to be the third pillar of the oil, gas and petrochemical industries. We are by 2030 aiming to more than triple mining’s contribution to our GDP, and by doing this, create more than 200,000 direct and indirect jobs. We have also passed a completely reformed Mining Investment Law effective since January 2021 which has greatly enhanced governance of the sector, plus really improved transparency – which we think has already increased investor confidence. But we also want this mining growth to be done sustainability while at the same time promoting health and safety and encourage local communities near any new mines to engage with the sector in terms of filling jobs and developing new businesses to supply the operations.”
On the exploration side, this has been moved completely from paper-based to a digital platform. “We have gathered all the existing geological and exploration information we have from the last 80 years and combined it in a new national database called the National Geological Database and spearheaded by the Saudi Geological Survey. Information is now easily accessible from anywhere. All of this is a necessary prerequisite to increase the rate of development of our mining and minerals industry.”
The Future Minerals Summit in January 2022 will reveal these measures in more detail but will more generally also highlight the mineral resource potential not only of Saudi Arabia but also the whole region including Africa and parts of Central/West Asia – a vast underexplored and underdeveloped area when it comes to mining.
What are the focus commodities for Saudi itself in terms of meeting both domestic and international demand? “There is of course a major domestic need – we are the fourth largest net importer of minerals in the world. We are a large and globally important economy so we want to develop further our own iron ore and bauxite deposits for our steel and aluminium industries as well as zinc for steel galvanising and titanium for lightweight alloys. We also want to be part of the future economy such as in the areas of EVs and batteries and develop deposits of copper, lithium and nickel for example. Plus other critical minerals such as tantalum, vanadium, REEs and niobium. All of these commodities are already found in our country but more will be found thanks to our ambitious plans for new regional geological surveys.”
Finally a note on sustainability – Saudi Arabia has also launched a new Middle East Green Initiative as part of which it is aiming to reach net zero GHG emissions by 2060. It is also aiming at producing 50% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030, including of course huge investment in solar power – its current renewables usage is less than 1%. And of course it is aiming to be one of the world’s leading hydrogen producers having just signed a deal with Thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers for it to supply and install a 2GW plus electrolysis plant for one of the largest green hydrogen projects in the world to be located in Saudi Arabia’s future city of NEOM, a linear city being developed in the north west of the country. The hydrogen plant commissioning is expected in 2026. Saudi Arabia also aims to plant 50 billion trees throughout the Middle East — 10 billion of them in the Kingdom alone; both to capture more CO2 and slow desertification.
