The Saudi Arabian Mining Co. (Ma’aden), Riyadh, has reiterated its ambitions to grow internationally in the phosphates fertilizer business as well as in base metals. President and CEO Darren Davis late last week said the company is actively looking for investment opportunities overseas that would complement and strengthen its existing domestic businesses, according to a Reuters report. The Saudi company is reported to be looking for potential joint ventures and acquisition opportunities in Latin America and India, among other locations, that would boost its operations in the two sectors.
Ma’aden’s former CEO, Khalid bin Saleh Al-Mudaifer, who resigned from the position in early June following his appointment as deputy minister of energy, industry, and mineral resources for mining affairs, had discussed the company’s overseas expansion ambitions in the phosphates and base metals sectors. Al Mudaifer said Ma’aden was eyeing the “key consuming markets” under its “overseas expansion” strategy. This past May, the former CEO was cited as saying “wherever there is a good mining source, we would like [to be there], and for fertilizers we would like to be in the main regions of consumption, which are the Americas and Asia.”
The company currently is expanding its phosphate fertilizer production capacity domestically, with work on a planned third large-scale phosphate complex, “Phosphate 3,” now underway. It recently signed a Sar3.35 billion engineering, procurement, and construction contract to a build a new ammonia plant at Ras Al-Khair, which is the first plant to begin construction at the new complex (GM Oct. 26, p. 1). Phosphate 3 is scheduled to be completed by 2025, and is part of “a new wave of expansions” now being launched by the company, Davis said in a Ma’aden statement this week.
On completion, Phosphate 3 will increase the company’s total phosphate fertilizer production capacity to nearly 9 million mt/y. The project is expected to cost Sar24 billion ($6.4 billion).
In base metals, gold accounts for the majority of wholly-owned subsidiary Ma’aden Gold and Base Metals Co.’s (MGBM) revenue, with copper, silver, and zinc accounting for the remainder. MGBM produced over 330,000 ounces of gold last year.
Ma’aden is celebrating its 10th anniversary since becoming a publicly-listed company, following the completion of a $2.5 billion Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 2008. Until then, the company was wholly owned by the Saudi government when 50 percent of its shares were floated on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul). The government continues to hold a 50 percent stake through the Public Investment Fund, the kingdom’s main sovereign wealth fund.