Saudis flag off $6.4b phosphate mining ‘city’

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud inaugurated the Waad Al-Shamaal mining project which is expected to boost the kingdom’s gross domestic product by 24 billion Saudi riyals (Dh23.51 billion; $6.4 billion) and its non-oil GDP by around 3 per cent. The kingdom will invest 85 billion riyals in the project, a 440-square kilometre city for mining industries in the northern region.

The completion of the next phase will lift the kingdom’s phosphate fertiliser production to 9 million tonnes annually, Energy Minister Khalid Al Falih said. “This will make the kingdom the second largest producer of phosphate fertilisers in the world,” Falih added.

Mining is key to the kingdom’s efforts to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons, as the government aims to more than triple the sector’s contribution to the nation’s economic output by 2030. Saudi authorities estimate the region holds 500 million tonnes of phosphate ore, around 7 per cent of global proven reserves, mainly in the Al Jalamid and Umm Wu’al areas between Arar and Turaif.

The energy ministry estimates the kingdom’s unused mineral resources to be valued at 5 trillion riyals ($1.33 trillion).