Saudi King to open $ 22.7 billion mining project on Thursday, Al Arabiya TV

RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi King Salman will inaugurate the Waad Al-Shamaal project, a 440-square-kilometer city dedicated to the mining industry in the north of the country on Thursday, Al Arabiya television quoted the minister as saying. Energy Khalid al-Falih.

The project will cost 85 billion riyals ($ 22.7 billion) and create 10,000 jobs, Falih said. It is part of an industrial scheme aimed at opening northern Saudi Arabia to development that will stimulate job creation.

Mining is key to the kingdom's reform plan to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons, as the government wants to triple the sector's contribution to the country's economic output by 2030.

The Saudi authorities estimate that the region holds 500 million tons of phosphate ore, or about 7% of proven global reserves, mainly in the Al Jalamid and Umm Wu'al areas between Arar and Turaif.

The Ministry of Energy estimates that the kingdom's unused mineral resources will be valued at 5,000 trillion riyals.

Saudi Arabia's efforts to build an economy that is not based on oil and state subsidies imply a shift towards the exploitation of vast untapped reserves of bauxite, the main source of aluminum, as well as phosphate , gold, copper and uranium.

According to Al Arabiya, Falih reportedly said the mining sector would be open to foreign investment after the introduction of a new law, without giving further details.

At present, Saudi Ma'aden 1211.SE is the only miner in the kingdom to produce gold and copper. In recent years, it has expanded to the production of aluminum and phosphates. It belongs to 65% to the public investment fund of the kingdom.

Ma'aden, also the largest miner in the Gulf, was developing its third phosphate fertilizer project at its Waad al-Shamal plant at an estimated cost of 24 billion riyals.