Aramco ve Maaden, Saudi Copper Mining Venture ile İlerliyor

Aramco and Maaden Move Ahead With Saudi Copper Mining Venture

Wed, August 19, 2026 at 6:39 AM GMT+3 2 min read

Saudi Aramco and Saudi Arabian Mining Company, or Maaden, have taken another step toward forming a joint venture aimed at expanding Saudi Arabia's exposure to copper and other minerals considered critical to the energy transition.

The companies said Tuesday they had signed a shareholders' agreement for a venture that would be 51% owned by Maaden and 49% by Aramco. The proposed JV remains subject to corporate, regulatory and antitrust approvals.

Exploration would concentrate on the roughly 182,000-square-kilometer Zone-4, or Transition Zone, within the Arabian Platform, an area equivalent to nearly 10% of Saudi Arabia's landmass.

Copper will be the primary target, alongside zinc, lead and rare earth elements. Demand for copper is expected to grow as electricity grids, renewable power installations, energy storage and electric vehicles expand globally.

The venture is designed to combine Maaden's mineral exploration and mining expertise with decades of geological and geophysical data accumulated by Aramco through its oil and gas operations. Aramco also plans to bring artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and subsurface modeling capabilities to help identify prospective mineral deposits more quickly.

The agreement advances plans first unveiled in January 2025, when Aramco and Maaden signed non-binding heads of terms to explore the creation of a transition-minerals venture. At the time, the companies highlighted Saudi Arabia's estimated $2.5 trillion mineral endowment and the potential to apply Aramco's subsurface database to mineral exploration.

The project forms part of Saudi Arabia's wider effort to build mining into a larger pillar of its economy and develop domestic supply chains for metals needed in power infrastructure and other energy-transition technologies.

For Aramco, the venture would also broaden its involvement beyond hydrocarbons while applying capabilities developed through decades of oil and gas exploration. Maaden, meanwhile, has been expanding exploration across the Kingdom as Saudi Arabia seeks to establish itself as a major minerals and metals hub.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com

Oilprice Intelligence brings you the signals before they become front-page news. This is the same expert analysis read by veteran traders and political advisors. Get it free, twice a week, and you'll always know why the market is moving before everyone else.

You get the geopolitical intelligence, the hidden inventory data, and the market whispers that move billions - and we'll send you $389 in premium energy intelligence, on us, just for subscribing. Join 400,000+ readers today. Get access immediately by clicking here.