The third edition of the international mining conference witnessed the signing of a number of memorandums of understanding between a number of government agencies, companies and institutions, the announcement of new exploration sites, and other incentives to enhance mining exploration.
The Ministry of industry and Mineral Resources and the Japan Organization for minerals and energy security signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in the fields of mining and mineral resources, with a special focus on the supply of vital minerals, which play an important role in global energy transformations.
The Ministry of industry and Mineral Resources and the Ministry of investment also signed memoranda of understanding with Jiangxi Copper Co.Ltd. to cooperate in evaluating and exploring investment opportunities in the copper value chain in the kingdom, covering the initial, intermediate and final stages, in addition to launching the mining innovation Oasis initiative in cooperation between the Ministry of industry and Mineral Resources, King Abdulaziz City for science and technology, the National Industries Development and logistics program, the Geological Survey and Ma'aden.
The first day of the conference also witnessed the announcement of unexplored mineral estimates, rising from 1.3 trillion dollars to 2.5 trillion dollars, and the disclosure of new incentives to enhance mining exploration by about 685 million riyals (182 million dollars) in cooperation with the Ministry of investment.
In the areas of capacity development for the mining sector in the kingdom, the Ministry of industry and Mineral Resources signed two memorandums of understanding with an international organization specialized in supporting women in mining to support efforts to increase women's participation in the mining sector, and with one of the international companies specialized in training to contribute to identifying the needs of the training system in the mining sector, and building training programs to achieve strategic objectives.
It is noteworthy that the conference witnessed the launch of the competition for detection licenses for the SA'id mountain mineralization belt, which contains a great wealth of base metal ores and precious metals, with an area of more than 4 thousand square kilometers, in addition to the launch of 33 new detection licenses through the competition within the upcoming licensing rounds for 2024.