New discoveries reinforce scale of Saudi mining vision

Resourcing Tomorrow’s 4th annual Government Roundtable will put a spotlight on turning policy into action and there are few better examples of this in the world today than Saudi Arabia and its Vision 2030 program.

The kingdom’s minister of commerce Majid bin Abdullah Al-Kassabi will join other government leaders from around the world in this year’s roundtable discussions in what has been a year of major milestones in Saudi Arabia’s resources sector.

Vice minister of industry and mineral resources for mining affairs, Khalid Al-Mudaifer, said in Paris recently a surge in mining licence approvals in 2026 underlined the strong momentum in the kingdom’s minerals sector. He also highlighted at the Gulf Vision 2026 forum the role of the National Industrial Development and Logistics Program in advancing Saudi Arabia’s industrial ambitions by bringing together the mining, energy and logistics sectors under a unified national strategy.

Al-Mudaifer said the program was expanding Saudi Arabia’s industrial capabilities, improving logistics networks and strengthening local value chains.

Saudi ministry of industry and mineral resources exploration development general manager, Ahmed Alaqeel, said in a recent interview mineral exploration spending surged to an estimated US$346 million in 2025 from circa-$50 million in 2020.

“In 2020 we had only six active exploration companies and roughly 35,000 square kilometres under license,” Alaqeel said.

“Today, we have north of 226 active exploration and mining companies. The land under active exploration has nearly doubled to more than 85,000sq.km.

“Under Vision 2030, mining is the third pillar of our national industry. We aren’t just looking at exploration in isolation, we are building a seamless ecosystem that connects exploration directly to production, downstream processing and industrialisation.

“Our exploration strategy explicitly aligns with our national downstream industrial needs. For example, under our national industrial strategy, Saudi Arabia plans to manufacture approximately 500,000 electric vehicles. That means our exploration targets are heavily geared toward the very minerals like copper, lithium and nickel needed to feed that domestic manufacturing pipeline.”

Alaqeel said efforts to open up one of the “largest, most underexplored geological structures globally, the Arabian Shield”, to modern exploration continued to move the kingdom towards its broader goals.

Private and publicly funded exploration in the mineral-rich region spanning more than 600,000sq.km was revealing new mineralised signatures, including large porphyry copper systems, SEDEX (sedimentary exhalative) mineralisation and a world-class rare earth element system discovered in 2025. High-purity quartz and mineral sands (including ilmenite) was also being identified along the Saudi coastline.

Alaqeel said the expanding, 10 million-ounce Mansourah Massarah gold mine provided strong proof that Saudi Arabia hosted tier-one mining assets, which would help dispel misconceptions about the scale of opportunities in the kingdom.

“We always encourage investors to visit Saudi Arabia, assess the geology firsthand and experience the broader business environment,” he said.

“Our mission extends far beyond simply issuing pieces of paper or awarding exploration licenses.

“Success means turning our US$2.5 trillion mineral endowment into active, operational mining assets that anchor global supply chains from mine to market.

“Our [2021] Mining Investment Code is globally recognised as one of the most competitive legal frameworks, offering 100% foreign ownership and absolute security of tenure for exploration licenses. We backed this code with the Regional Geological Program, one of the largest surveys of its kind globally. We surveyed the entire Arabian Shield using high-resolution airborne geophysics and advanced geochemistry, merging it with historical data from the USGS and BRGM.

“Investors can use our digital geological data platform National Geological Database. They can download all our recent, high-quality geological data free of charge, look at available land blocks and apply directly through Ta’adeen platform, our licensing digital system.

“We have tendered around 44,000sq.km across dozens of sites. Today, we are formally executing Round 11, which features eight highly prospective sites covering a total area of approximately 1800sq.km. This round includes four premium copper targets, three gold targets and an iron oxide copper-gold [IOCG] deposit type.”

Alaqeel said beyond significant known resources such as the Khnaiguiyah zinc-copper deposit, the Jabal Garan polymetallic deposit and Maaden’s Mansourah-Massarah resource, the world was getting a glimpse at the “frontier potential of the shield”.

“Our discovery of a massive REE system last year – estimated at 644 million tonnes across six separate locations – shows that the shield holds minerals we didn’t focus on historically,” he said.

“We believe the Arabian Shield has the perfect geological settings not just for gold and base metals, but for highly critical minerals. It just requires a serious, modern exploration campaign by the right companies to unlock them.

“Our ecosystem has successfully attracted tier-one global companies such as Hancock Prospecting Vedanta, Shandong Gold and Zijin Mining, alongside highly active mid-caps and juniors. Our regulatory framework operates on a clear principle: if a company discovers a viable deposit within those two years the government steps in with full institutional weight to accelerate their approvals toward pre-feasibility.

“If the site does not show economic mineralisation the land is relinquished and that new data is poured back into our National Geological Database. This allows the next explorer to approach the ground with a fresh geological perspective.

“A perfect real-world benchmark of this speed is our very first licensing site, Khnaiguiyah. The exploration licence was awarded in September 2022. By December 2025 the developers successfully expanded the resource from 25 million tonnes to 75 million tonnes of zinc and copper and they have already been awarded their full mining licence.

“That is a move from exploration award to full development stage in just over three years.”