The company announced on Monday that it was studying a significant expansion of its phosphate activities involving the exploitation of a second major phosphate deposit in the north of Saudi Arabia. It would supply merchant grade phosphoric acid to the fertilizer, food and animal feed industries.
"The progress of the Umm Wual Al-Khabra project, our second phosphate initiative, demonstrates that Maaden and Saudi Arabia are becoming major contributors to the global phosphate industry and that our desert kingdom will help to feed the world in years to come," added Abdullah Dabbagh, Ma'aden's president and CEO. "The projects help fulfill Ma'aden's commitment to develop the mineral wealth of the Kingdom and become a catalyst for downstream industries."
The project would use port, rail and infrastructure developments put in place by the Kingdom's government to deliver regional development through the expansion of key industries. "The feasibility study currently under way will evaluate the viability of the project to supply highly demanded phosphate intermediate products to augment Ma'aden's phosphate product mix. It would not be appropriate to suggest a timetable for development, however, until after the study is completed," said Khaled Mudaifer, Ma'aden's VP for phosphates.
The area under study is the Al-Khabra deposit in the Umm Wual license area located 40 km northeast of Turaif. The project would involve the development of an open pit mine and simple beneficiation process adding approximately 1.5 million tons annually to Ma'aden's scheduled phosphate capacity. Ma'aden would market the output both locally and internationally.
Previous surveys of the area have indicated resources at the Al-Khabra mining license standing at 234 million metric tons grading at 17 percent to 19 percent P2O5 (phosphorous pentoxide). There is very low heavy metals content, ensuring that the phosphoric acid will be of the highest quality and could be used for the food and feed industries.
The Umm Wual concession contains further JORC compliant indicated and inferred resources of 446 million tons as well as significant further resource potential. Ma'aden is continuing exploration activities in the area to expand the resource.
Ma'aden's existing phosphate joint venture with SABIC, Ma'aden Phosphate Company (MPC), which includes a mine and beneficiation site at Al-Jalamid and processing plants at Ras Az Zawr, is scheduled to begin production later this year and at the end of February was 92.14 percent complete. When in full production MPC will produce 2.92 million tons per year of Diammonium Phosphate Fertilizer (DAP) for export to markets including the nearby high growth markets of Asia.
