Mineral Development Oman (MDO) is eyeing to gradually shift its portfolio to larger sized projects, and from upstream to downstream projects in the future, an MDO official said. 

Ma’an Abdullah Al Salmi, Business Development Manager, MDO, said there has been immense activity on the exploration side over the past three years in commodities such as copper, gold, chromite, limestone, gypsum, dolomite and salt, and MDO is looking to develop downstream applications for them. 

“Going forward the mining industry in Oman is expected to attract global players specifically in the downstream segment,” he said while speaking at the Middle East Mining and Resources Virtual Expo and Summit held this week. 

Giving an update of MDO’s project pipeline, Al Salmi said: “Recently we started relooking at salt as a commodity which could be a feed for the petrochemical and oil industry, for downstream industrial activities or for export. We are looking at developing two salt projects - one in Mahout and another in the oil fields.” 

MDO established Naqa Salt with Shumookh as the local partner to develop sea salt harvesting projects in the Al Wusta region close to Duqm.  

Al Salmi said a $20 million salt project spread over 109-square kilometres (sq km) is currently in the feasibility stage, adding that MDO has a 50 percent stake in the project and Sweden-based Salinity could be a potential partner. 

Suhar Titanium is a $111.8 million titanium dioxide processing facility in partnership with Stork International in which MDO owns 35 percent stake.  

“It’s a downstream project where the raw material is procured from abroad, but the idea is to capitalise on Oman’s advantageous location and logistics facilities. It is currently in the engineering design stage and is expected to be operational in three years”, he said. 

Another MDO project is Mazoon Mining, which is a $100 million copper project currently in the FEED stage. “We will have a better idea about the numbers later this year,” he said. 

The MDO executive pointed out that Shaleem minerals block is rich in gypsum, dolomite and limestone. The $350 million project spread over 3,500 sq km is expected to be developed the area as a mining hub with integrated logistics solution. 

“The pre-feasibility study has showed promising results. We are talking about half a billion tonnes of gypsum reserves and two billion tons of limestone resources. Jindal Shaheed, Adani and Heidelberg Cement could be potential partners,” he said. 

(Reporting by Sowmya Sundar; Editing by Anoop Menon) 

(anoop.menon@refinitiv.com) 

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