Saudi Arabia has announced a new joint venture between its state-run oil and mining companies — Aramco, the world’s largest in oil, and Ma’aden — marking another step in its march to develop a critical minerals industry.
The partnership aims to extract lithium— an essential component in electric vehicle (EV) and electronic devices — from high-concentration deposits while exploring cost-effective direct extraction technologies. Commercial lithium production is expected to commence by 2027, the companies said.
“We expect that this partnership will leverage the world’s leading upstream enterprise…with a view to meeting the kingdom and potentially the world’s projected lithium demand,” Aramco’s president of exploration and production, Nasser al-Naimi, said in a release.
The announcement aligns with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, an ambitious initiative to diversify away from oil by developing its mining sector and other industries. The plan targets an estimated $2.5 trillion in untapped mineral resources including phosphate, copper, gold and bauxite. It seeks to nearly quadruple mining’s GDP contribution from $17 billion to $64 billion by 2030.
Domestic demand
Demand for transition minerals such as lithium, copper and nickel are set to surge globally despite low prices for the past two years. Aramco forecasts a 20-fold increase in domestic lithium demand between 2024 and 2030, sufficient to support 500,000 EV batteries and 110 gigawatts of renewable energy sources.
In December, Aramco, Saudi lithium start-up Lihytec, and Ma’aden announced the country’s first successful lithium extraction from oilfield brine. The kingdom is also building an EV manufacturing hub in King Abdullah Economic City on the Red Sea coast.
Strategic investments
To strengthen its mining ambitions, Saudi Arabia established Manara Minerals, a joint venture between Ma’aden and the Public Investment Fund (PIF). The fund focuses on acquiring overseas mining assets.
Its notable international ventures include a 2023 acquisition of a 10% stake in Vale Base Metals, the US$26-billion copper and nickel spin-off from Vale. The kingdom is also pursuing a stake in Pakistan’s US$7-billion Reko Diq copper and gold mine, owned 50% by Barrick Gold and 50% by Pakistan’s federal and provincial governments.
Currently, Saudi Arabia imports most of its copper to meet domestic demand, which stands at 365,000 tonnes annually and is expected to more than double by 2035.
Gold, copper
Separately, Ma’aden announced on Wednesday the discovery of recoverable gold and copper deposits in its exploration areas on the Arabian Shield.
“We’ve been making significant investments in exploration in recent years, with the launch of the world’s largest single-jurisdiction mineral exploration programs,” CEO Bob Wilt said in a release. “The raw prospectivity of the kingdom has been proven.”
While the Saudi miner didn’t provide specific estimates on the size and quality of the mineralization, it said that ongoing analysis and drilling efforts would refine its understanding of the deposits throughout 2025.
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