https://www.miningweekly.com

Saudi Arabia faces challenges to tap its vast copper reserves

26th September 2022

By: Bloomberg

  

Font size: - +

Saudi Arabia says it has the potential to unlock enough copper to ease a looming shortage as the world makes an epic shift to clean energy, but the kingdom faces challenges that established mining countries already have solved.

Key among those challenges as the world’s largest oil producer seeks to unlock an estimated $1.3-trillion in mineral wealth are logistics and water supplies, according to Bandar bin Ibrahim Al-Khorayef, Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources.

“One of the things that the mining sector needs is really a lot of infrastructure,” Al-Khorayef said Friday in an interview at Bloomberg’s global headquarters in New York. “It could be road, could be railway and port” to bring the resources in the north of the country to the east to be processed and then shipped, he said.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle -- especially for a country covered in large part by desert -- is water, which is essential in churning out the mineral from open-pit or underground mines. “Water is key. If we were to compromise certain technologies, but that would save us water, that would be something very interesting to us,” Al-Khorayef said.

Another challenge may be attracting giant miners with global expertise and deep pocketbooks, who are competing with smaller firms in auctions for exploration rights. This month a license was awarded to the UK’s Moxico Resources Plc, a closely held company with a copper project in Zambia, and Saudi Arabia’s Ajlan & Bros. The potential rewards are huge, with the estimated supply of copper worth $222-billion, at current prices equal to 1.4 times the global mine supply in 2021.

Saudi Arabia is going to award the second tender soon and may start a third, Al-Khorayef said, and is fast-tracking locations that have great reserves ready to go commercially viable. According to Al-Khorayef, Saudi Arabia is putting processes into place that would allow mining permits to be processed within 30 days. That is in sharp contrast to about seven to 10 years in the US, where there are multiple layers of regulation with extensive environmental and land-rights reviews.

Edited by Bloomberg

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION