Our Business

 

Exploration

 

Mineral exploration is a core component of Ma’aden’s strategic business and growth. Ma’aden aims to maintain a pipeline of resources to sustain, grow and diversify its businesses. Ma’aden’s is implementing latest technologies to explore, discover and evaluate new mineral resources to replace or replenish current ore reserves that are being consumed by Ma’aden’s rapidly growing businesses. Exploration Licenses are approved for Ma’aden by the Government of Saudi Arabia. Ma’aden continue to apply for new Exploration Licenses in support of its growth.

In 2019, Ma’aden increased exploration budget to USD 66.7 million (SAR 250 million) focusing on brownfield drilling, as well as the assessment of potential greenfield targets. Ma’aden continue drilling at prospect locations within its Exploration Licenses, where recent exploration activities by Ma’aden have identified additional new mineral deposits. This is expected to increase Ma’aden confidence level.

Ma'aden continue to conduct full gap analysis of safety and environmental procedures and implemented the resulting recommendations. One of the actions taken by Ma’aden is the installation of a real-time satellite tracking of all field vehicles operating in remote areas to allow monitoring and rapid response in case of emergency.

Exploration 2025 Goals

Ma'aden’s current exploration activities are geared towards delivering Ma'aden's production;

  • Focusing on key target areas close to Ma’aden’s existing operations.
  • Expanding the available exploration footprint by lodging new Exploration Licenses applications over prospective mineralized belts.
  • Starting the geological study of the areas under Ma'aden Licenses and executing a comparison study between current mining sites and other exploration locations to establish a link to for better understanding of resources.

Ma'aden is working on accelerating exploration activities within its Exploration Licenses, where Gold occurrences been located in the Arabian Shield, as Ma’aden divide the Arabian Shield into three areas called: Northern, Central, and Southern of Saudi Arabia. Ma’aden is moving now from finding a target to the evaluation process.

Exploration Technology

Ma'aden continue to invest heavily in modern exploration technology, such as Regional Airborne Surveys, Geochemical Surveys and Remote Sensing Data in order to fully evaluate existing and new exploration deposits.