Although the majority is owned by the Saudi government, Ma’aden is also a publicly traded company. Its stock is traded on the main market of the Saudi Exchange, and its CEO is a US citizen, Bob Wilt. Ma’aden is a multi-commodity mining company involved in the mining of phosphates, bauxite (the main input to aluminum), copper, gold, and other industrial minerals such as magnesium.

Ma’aden already had strong links to gold when it was established in 1997 to develop Saudi Arabia’s mineral resources, and the first mineral which Ma’aden mined was actually gold: “Gold enjoys a special status at Ma’aden as the first commodity ever mined by the company. The company, at its inception, earned almost all its earnings from gold production.”

Fast forward to the current day, and gold is now a core part of Ma’aden’s activities, with gold mining undertaken by the Base Metals and New Minerals Company (BMNM), a fully-owned subsidiary of Ma’aden. Critically, Ma’aden is now taking on an even more central and critical role in the Kingdom’s mineral and mining plans, with PIF saying that “further projects are underway consistent with Ma’aden being the third pillar of Vision 2030 for Saudi Arabia’s economy.”

Gold already accounts for a majority of BMNM’s revenue, with the remainder coming from the mining of silver, copper, and zinc. Ma’aden’s gold production activities currently span seven operating gold mines in Saudi Arabia, all within the Arabian Shield zone. In 2023, Ma’aden produced 407,000 ounces of gold (12.65 t):

• Ad Duwayhi: 147,294 oz.
• The Bulghah and Sukhaybarat gold mines, located 70 km from each other: a combined 58,516 oz.
• Mahd Adh Dhahab, known as the Gold Cradle mine, a historic mine located in the Al Madinah region, which produced 22,954 oz in 2023. Gold was mined in Mahd Adh Dhahab as early as 3,000 years ago, and historians speculate that this site could be the location of King Solomon’s fabled gold mine.
• Al Amar: 20,260 oz
• As Suq: 11,850 oz

However, the real jewels in the crown are the Mansourah and Massarah mines, in Ma’aden’s newest and largest mining area, a series of open pit mines located in the Makkah region, which produced their first gold (11,983 ounces) in 2022 and then increased output by an incredible twelvefold in 2023 to 146,038 oz.

Ma’aden expects this to be only the beginning, since it has made a major gold discovery that signals potentially vast gold resources in the Mansourah and Massarah area. This announcement came in late 2023 and is based on drilling results from Ma’aden’s gold exploration program in the area, an exploration program which began in 2022. According to the announcement, Ma’aden says it has discovered multiple high-grade gold deposits along a 100 kilometer strike south of the Mansourah-Massarah mines in an area called Uruq South.

These findings are based on drilling results showing an array of gold grades between 10.4 and 20.6 grams per tonne. Given these high-grade drilling discoveries, Ma’aden has since ramped up its gold drilling program around the Mansourah-Massarah area.

Additionally, Ma’aden has also been exploring a 25 kilometer stretch north of Mansourah-Massarah in an area called the Jabal Ghadarah and Bir Tawilah prospects, where it has converted 1.5 Moz of inferred gold to indicated and measured status. Not surprisingly, Ma’aden says that this combined 125km strike has “significant potential to become a major world class gold belt in Saudi Arabia”. With these new gold discoveries, Ma’aden says that the Mansourah-Massarah mines hold nearly 7 Moz (218 t) of gold resources.

Ma’aden expects the Mansourah-Massarah to produce more than 500,000 ounces by 2025 and to reach 700,000 ounces of gold by 2028, with long-term plans to achieve a fourfold increase by 2040, targeting 1.6 Moz annually. This will require discovering and defining increasingly large amounts of gold per year and entail more and more exploration activities alongside production growth across Saudi Arabia.

At the Future Minerals Forum (FMF) 2025 in Riyadh in January, Ma’aden announced further discoveries including new drilling results from its Mansourah-Massarah gold mine which showed strong gold mineralization with high-grade extensions at depth, a new gold discovery at Wadi Al Jaww, and further successful exploration results at Jabal Shayban in the Arabian Shield, which Ma’aden says highlights the region’s potential as a significant gold and copper district.

Smaller International Players in the Saudi Gold Sector

KEFI Gold and Copper

KEFI Gold and Copper is a London-listed exploration and development company focused on gold and copper deposits in the Arabian-Nubian Shield, primarily in Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia. In Saudi Arabia, KEFI has discovered gold resources at its Jibal Qutman gold project and Hawiah copper-zinc project, and has a joint venture called Gold and Minerals Co. Ltd (GMCO) with Saudi company Abdul Rahman Saad Al Rashid and Sons Company Limited (ARTAR), to bid on other exploration projects. In fact, Ma’aden and Barrick combined forces in a tender in 2022 against ARTAR, when both parties bid on an exploration license to explore the Umm Ad Damar site in Madinah, which spans more than 40 km and includes copper, zinc, gold, and lead.

Royal Road Minerals

Royal Road Minerals is a mineral exploration and development company, based in Jersey, which focuses on gold and copper discovery and extraction in politically supportive jurisdictions. The company emphasizes partnerships with local entities and adopts a discovery-to-development approach, aiming to minimize political risks that often arise during critical project phases. For this reason, Royal Road Minerals is impressed with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which commits to diversifying the Saudi economy and promoting mining sector growth through regulatory reforms, financial incentives, and infrastructure development.

With Saudi Arabia now actively supporting mining to boost its non-oil GDP from 16 to 50% as part of its Vision 2030 plan, the Kingdom has reformed its mining regulations, created an online geological database, and offered substantial financial incentives: up to USD 200mn for exploration expenses and 75% of initial mine capital, capped at USD 800mn per project. This strong political backing has been attractive to Royal Road Minerals, which, after two years of collaboration, has already identified several promising gold and copper targets in Saudi Arabia, with three currently being drilled. Royal Road Minerals is listed on Canada’s TSX Venture Exchange.

Saudi Discovery Company

Saudi Discovery Company (SDC) is a private mineral exploration and development firm from Vancouver, focused on Saudi Arabia’s Arabian-Nubian Shield. Founded by experienced mining entrepreneurs, SDC targets copper, zinc, and precious metals, particularly in VMS-style (volcanogenic massive sulfide) deposits, and has extensive experience growing mining companies from single to multi-mine platforms. The company holds exploration licenses across the Arabian Shield, began exploration in late 2024, and has continued drilling targets in 2025, while acquiring additional targets.

SDC is drawn to Saudi Arabia due to Vision 2030’s long-term strategy, significant underexplored geological potential, and recent mining law reforms, and cites the Kingdom’s investor-friendly policies, world-class infrastructure, quick license processes, and favorable fiscal regime as making it one of the most attractive mining jurisdictions globally, while aligning with SDC’s growth vision.

ANS Exploration

ANS Exploration is a greenfield Canadian mineral exploration company focused on tier-one discoveries in Saudi Arabia’s Arabian-Nubian Shield, using advanced techniques like AI-driven targeting and modern geoscience. ANS believes that Saudi Arabia is also one of the most exciting frontiers for mining today, with vast untapped resources, a supportive regulatory environment, and a clear vision under Vision 2030 to establish mining as the country’s third pillar of industry. The Saudi government’s supportive mining policies, world-class infrastructure, and untapped geological potential make it an attractive jurisdiction for mining.

In terms of resources, the Arabian-Nubian Shield is a highly prospective mineral province comparable in scale to some of the world’s most productive mining regions, such as the Canadian Shield, West African Craton, and Western Australia. It hosts tier-one deposits with prolific potential for gold, copper, and other critical minerals, yet remains significantly underexplored with low exploration maturity. Offering year-round exploration and low-cost energy advantages, ANS has identified Saudi Arabia’s transformation into a booming mining sector and aims to contribute to its growth.

International Cooperation and Joint Ventures

The Saudi government and Ma’aden are also actively partnering with global mining firms to boost the growth of Saudi Arabia’s mining sector, a strategy which also enhances the Kingdom’s reputation as a viable and attractive mining destination, and is crucial for technological advancements, knowledge transfer, and capital investment in the Saudi mining industry.

Two cases in point are Ma’aden’s partnerships with Barrick, whose CEO is Mark Bristow, and Ivanhoe Electric, whose executive chairman is Robert Friedland. Ma’aden and Barrick operate Saudi Arabia’s Jabal Sayid underground copper mine as a 50/50 joint venture, located in the same general region as Ma’aden’s gold mines.

More recently, Ma’aden and Barrick entered two additional joint ventures to explore for minerals in the Jabal Sayid South and Umm Ad Damar areas near the Jabal Sayid mine. These are 50/50 joint ventures via companies called Ma’aden Barrick 2 Limited (MBC2) and Ma’aden Barrick 3 Limited (MBC3).

Ma’aden also has a 50/50 joint venture with Ivanhoe Electric to conduct geophysical surveying of 48,500 km² of licensed areas within Saudi Arabia’s Arabian Shield to identify potential new discoveries of gold, copper, nickel, silver, and other minerals.

This joint venture is part of a strategic partnership that Ma’aden entered into with Ivanhoe Electric in January 2023, whereby Ma’aden purchased 9.9% of Ivanhoe Electric. The exploration uses Ivanhoe’s Typhoon geophysical surveying system to collect data, which is then analyzed by Ivanhoe’s subsidiary Computational Geosciences Inc. (CGI) to identify new mineral deposits. Results to date look promising, with mineral areas identified by Typhoon’s surveying near Ma’aden’s Al Amar gold-copper-zinc mine subsequently proven to have potential by an initial drilling program.

In addition to developing the mining sector in Saudi Arabia, Ma’aden also invests in mining assets abroad via a joint venture company with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). This joint venture, known as Manara Minerals Investment Co., was established in January 2023 and is 51% owned by Ma’aden and 49% owned by PIF. Manara’s mission is to invest in mining assets globally, such as copper, nickel, iron ore, lithium, and gold.

In May 2024, Manara Minerals finalized its first external investment when it announced the completion of the purchase of a 10% stake in Brazil’s Vale Base Metals, the energy transition minerals company of Brazilian mining giant Vale. Following this, the Financial Times revealed in January that Manara Minerals is set to acquire a 10–20% stake in Pakistan’s Reko Diq copper-gold project by purchasing the stake from the Pakistan Government. Barrick holds a 50% stake in the Reko Diq project, which is expected to produce 200,000 t of copper concentrate and 250,000 oz of gold annually, with completion scheduled for 2029.

At both the 2024 and 2025 Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with an array of countries to help develop Saudi Arabia’s mining sector through international collaborations. At the FMF 2024, MoUs were signed with Egypt, Morocco, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, focusing on cooperation in the field of mineral wealth, and a MoU was signed with Russia involving cooperation in geology.

At the FMF in 2025, Saudi Arabia signed MoUs with six countries – Djibouti, Jordan, the UK, Zambia, Austria, and France – aimed at advancing international partnerships to develop the Kingdom’s mining sector. These agreements focus on cooperation in areas like technology, investment, and expertise exchange.

Chinese Geological Survey in Saudi Arabia

Notably, Saudi Arabia has also mining exploration partnerships with gold mining behemoth China. In June 2023, at the 10^th Arab-China business conference in Riyadh, the Saudi Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources announced a partnership with China to both survey the Arabian Shield for mineral resources and to promote joint venture excavations.

This will involve the Saudi Geological Survey partnering with the China Geological Survey, in a USD 207mn project to geologically map the Arabian Shield into the Saudi National Geological Database and produce over 270 geological maps and reports of the shield so as to identify mineral deposits. This project contract with the China Geological Survey extends to 11 years, and according to Goldman Sachs, Saudi Arabia has a target to complete 50% of the Arabian Shield geological survey by 2025.

The significance of this survey partnership shouldn’t be underestimated, as it matches Saudi Arabia with China, the world’s largest gold mining country, and will allow Saudi Arabia to tap into China’s vast knowledge of gold and other minerals exploration and production.

Chinese and Saudi government officials already see Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and China’s Belt and Road (BRI) initiatives as complementary and synergistic, and are aligning incentives and cooperation in the exploration and development of Saudi Arabia’s mineral sector.

While China already has extensive experience in mineral exploration and production in Saudi Arabia, for example, through the China National Geological & Mining Corporation (CGM) Saudi branch and the Contact Office of Chinese Companies in Saudi Arabia (COCC), the cooperation of their geological survey units will take it to another level.

Government Incentives: Exploration and Development Boost

As part of Vision 2030, the Saudi government aims to attract USD 170bn in investments into the mining sector by 2030 from a combination of foreign and local companies, as well as creating 200,000 jobs in the sector.

To accelerate foreign investment into the mining sector, the Saudi government introduced a new mining law in June 2020 that organizes financing for investors and that supports geological survey and exploration activities, and has now implemented a range of incentives to accelerate private sector exploration and development in the mining sector. These incentives are designed to attract both domestic and foreign investment so as to make Saudi Arabia a competitive destination for mining companies. Key incentives include tax benefits, financial support for exploration activities, and streamlined permitting processes to expedite project development.

For example, the Saudi government offers both mineral exploration incentives and streamlined mineral exploration licenses to both Saudi and international entities. These services are administered by ESNAD Saudi Mining Services Company on the Ta’adeen platform, under the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources (MIM), which also hosts a database of detailed geological and technical data of the Kingdom.

In January 2024, at the Future Minerals Forum (FMF), the Saudi Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources and the Ministry of Investment announced a USD 182mn mineral exploration incentive program, which covers up to 25% of exploration costs, and an accelerated mining and exploration licensing program.

One year later, at the 2025 Future Minerals Forum, the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources said it is planning to offer exploration licenses for approximately 50,000 square km of mineralized belt sites in 2025 via competitive bidding rounds. As part of this process, in March 2025, the Saudi Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources launched a tender for exploration licenses covering 25,000 km² and three mineral-rich exploration zones in the Riyadh and Medina regions that are believed to hold deposits of gold, copper, silver, zinc, nickel, and other minerals.

For advanced exploration and mining projects, the Saudi Industrial Development Fund also provides loans for up to 75% of the capital cost of mine development at nominal interest rates, including feasibility studies and construction. The government has also invested heavily in infrastructure to support mining operations, including transportation networks and energy supply.

Path to Top 20 Gold Producer

Saudi gold production totaled approximately 500,000 oz in 2023, and was expected to be in the 530,000 oz range for 2024. At just over 15 t of gold output, this is still relatively small by international standards. As of 2023, Saudi Arabia accounts for only 0.38% of global gold production.

Against this background, however, Bandar Alkhorayef, Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources, announced in 2023 that “Our target is to boost that level to one million ounces in 2030”, that is, to approx. 31 t. This level of gold mining output would put Saudi Arabia on a par with annual gold output from countries such as Venezuela, 30 t; Niger, 33.4 t; Chile 35.4 t; and Turkey, 36.5 t.