RIYADH, 27 August — The Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources has granted the Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma’aden) a license to mine copper ore and allied minerals at Sayed Mountain, northeast of Mahd Al-Dahab, Madinah, for a five-year period.
This was disclosed by Dr. Abdullah Al-Dabbagh, president of Ma’aden, who said in a statement that the issuance of the license is within the framework of the company’s policy to develop the mining industry in the Kingdom.
Describing investment in the mining sector as promising, Al-Dabbagh said Ma’aden was currently producing about 1,000 tons of copper annually with a planned production increase of about 1700 tons per year from 2003.
According to Dr. Zuheir Nawab, undersecretary in the Petroleum Ministry, the Kingdom is planning to give a tax rebate of over 15 percent for local and overseas investments in the mining sector — from 45 down to 30 percent.
He said the deputy minister, in collaboration with local and international experts, has drafted the new mining regulation that has already been vetted by a ministerial experts committee.
Ma’aden has unveiled plans to invest SR11 billion ($2.93 billion) to develop the mining industry. It said phosphate deposits in the Jalamid area up north were estimated at 110 million tons.
“If brought into full production, it would make Saudi Arabia the third largest producer of phosphate in the world,” states the company’s annual report released here recently. It adds that the project, which needs an investment of $ 2 billion, would support mining operation for over 50 years.
The report said Ma’aden was also studying a magnesite project at Zarghat with a potential of 1.6 million tons.
“After processing, these ores could yield 20,000 tons per annum of high-grade, high-value electrofused magnesia for global refractories markets.”
The company is also assessing bauxite deposits in the northeastern part of the Kingdom with high alumina content. These bauxite reserves could serve the needs of regional aluminum smelters for the next 20 years.
Already, bauxite deposits estimated at 94 million tons have been found at Zubeira, 460 km northeast of Riyadh. Bauxite is the raw material for alumina which in turn is processed in the smelters into aluminum.
Among the other minerals, Ma’aden produces 120,000 ounces of gold per year besides 300,000 ounces of silver and 3,000 tons of zinc. Mahd Al-Dahab is credited with a production capacity of 100,000 ounces of gold and 300,000 ounces of silver for at least seven years.
The company runs Sukhaybarat gold mine with ore reserves sufficient for three years at the current production level of 50,000 ounces of gold annually.
It has also started gold production from Hajjar mine, 65 km north of Bisha. The mine was developed by the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources at a cost of SR94 million after a feasibility study conducted by the ministry in 1989 confirmed the viability of the gold mining project. The Kingdom’s total gold production in the past 12 years has been estimated at 67,151 kg, according to Nawab.
