Saudi Arabias largest gold mine to begin operations Q1 2022 - minister

“In the pipeline, we have a project that will start producing next quarter,” Khalid Al-Khudaifer, vice minister for mining affairs at the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, told Arab News in an interview at Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative. “This project is our largest gold mine.”

The project in the Makkah region is using renewable energy for 13 percent of its energy requirements with a plan to increase it, he said.

Saudi Arabia is currently producing about 400,000 ounces from five mines that were developed in the last 10 years, but he wants to see a lot more, Al-Khudaifer said.

“The numbers we are seeing across the mining sector are not enough,” he said. “We need to have very ambitious targets during the next 20 years.”

The Kingdom’s mining companies need to invest in technology, to change the way metals are extracted and processed, and to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, he said.

Saudi Arabia has huge underground gold reserves estimated at 323.7 tons, and the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources has so far issued 477 gold ore detection licenses.

The mining sector is witnessing a rapid transformation and attracting investors from around the globe since the launch of a new mining law earlier this year.

Saudi Arabia’s mining industry has already attracted some major foreign investors. American industrial corporation Alcoa has a 25.1 percent stake in two companies, Ma’aden Bauxite and Alumina and Ma’aden Aluminum, as part of $10.8 billion joint venture with the Saudi Arabian Mining Co., Ma’aden, located in Ras Al-Khair Industrial City in the Eastern Province.

Mining law is an investment law so "it has to be competitive for people because investors have the choice to come here or go to another jurisdiction," Al-Khudaifer said in the interview.

"We made sure that Saudi Arabia is the world's best, with the lowest mining tax in the world, because we want development, we want the long-term benefit of mining," he said.

The Kingdom has issued 133 local exploration licenses, and there are applications for international exploration that are under processing, he said. "That is a big percentage because this is almost 25 percent, a quarter of what we have done in 20 years."

The Kingdom plans to launch a comprehensive geological survey to map the country’s mining potential.

The five-year program will conduct geophysical and geochemical surveys and create detailed mapping of more than 700,000 sq. km of the mineral-rich Arabian Shield area in Saudi Arabia.

According to geological surveys dating back 80 years, the Kingdom has an estimated reserve of untapped mining potential valued at $1.3 trillion.

The Vision 2030 reform plan identified the mining sector as a potential third pillar of the Kingdom’s industrial growth, alongside petroleum and petrochemicals. The country is investing SR14 billion to develop the sector.