JEDDAH: The final day of the MENA-EX mining forum concluded on a positive note yesterday. Visitors believed the exploitation potential of the Kingdom’s mineral resources was enormous with mining set to become the second pillar of the Saudi economy.
However, junior mining companies suggested that ease of access for individual specialists in the research and exploration fields be made easier and bureaucratic processes speeded up.
During a panel review session examining the needs of junior mining companies in early level entry into a new market such as Saudi Arabia, Michael J. Hopley, president and CEO of Sunridge Gold Corp., opined that bureaucracy was the main hurdle to overcome in setting up local industries.
“Individuals and specialists need access to the (mining) properties to be able to gather information ... Financial analysts, geologists and bankers often have difficulty getting visas as individuals,” he said, adding that obtaining access to data and necessary geological and exploration information often proved difficult.
Junior mining companies are the mining equivalent of the wildcatters — oil freelancers — of the early American oil development era. Small and highly flexible companies with both huge expertise and practical experience in arduous and unproved terrain, they are frequently without the finance of the giants. Their value is that they prove the ground and area as profitable in turn attracting the majors who bring the big business. Both are necessary in the development of the mining industry.
Hopley said the current state of the market and thinking about mining is in its early stage of development and that “nothing fits well.” He was optimistic that in the long term, this would change for the better.
“My first impressions of Saudi Arabia as a development area are positive,” he said. “The geology is one we know well from the Canadian and Nubian shields, and junior companies are first in.”
Daniel Danis, CEO of Unigold, expanded the need for both rapid and easy bureaucratic processes and partnerships and long term arrangements.
“As soon as a junior gets finance, then time is of the essence,” he said.