RIYADH - Saudi Arabia is in the advanced stages of talks about a stake in a copper mine in Zambia and is expecting a deal by the end of the year, the CEO of Saudi Arabia’s flagship mining company Ma’aden told Reuters on Wednesday.

“We are looking at Zambia, we are talking with a company there, with a mine there, so those are pretty advanced stage discussions,” CEO Robert Wilt, who is also vice chairman of Saudi Arabia’s international mining venture Manara Minerals, said.

"We'd have something wrapped up by the end of the year," Wilt, speaking on the sidelines of the Future Investment Forum conference in Riyadh, said.

Sources told Reuters earlier this month that Manara, a joint venture between Ma'aden and Saudi Arabia's $925 billion Public Investment Fund was closing in on a deal to buy a minority stake in Canadian miner First Quantum Minerals' Zambian copper and nickel assets.

The sources had said the Saudi company was in advanced talks to acquire between 15% and 20% equity in the Zambian assets with one of them estimating the stake at between $1.5 billion and $2 billion.

“Obviously, Africa is mineral rich with a lot of copper in the copper belt. So it just makes perfect sense, because the geographical proximity and our desire for copper to be looking in Africa,” Wilt said.

Manara has made significant investments in metals as part of Saudi Arabia's efforts to secure minerals and expand Saudi Arabia's mining sector.

The country's growing mining industry is a key pillar in de-facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman's Vision 2030 programme to diversify the economy away from oil dependency.

Manara's first major foray abroad was a deal to become a 10% shareholder in Vale's $26 billion copper and nickel spin-off Vale Base Metals in 2023.

Wilt said copper was becoming a "top priority" for Manara because it was a base metal like aluminum that would be increasingly in demand with the energy transition.

"The niche battery metals, while important, are not as fundamental to the success of the development of the downstream, but copper is essential."

(Reporting by Pesha Magid; writing by Maha El Dahan Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Jane Merriman)