Arab News

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has launched an aggressive campaign to capture the full potential of the mining industry, and it has identified several sites in the Kingdom that are rich in minerals.

One of them is a site in Al-Khunayqiyah in southern Riyadh, which has earlier been discovered to have four separate mineral bodies rich in copper and zinc.

Abdullah Al-Shamrani, the chief executive officer of Saudi Geological Survey, which is in charge of assessing the Kingdom’s geological potential, said the site is in “pioneer stage,” and will be ready “in one to two years.”

“We do expect that within one or two years, once the license has been issued, the Al-Khunayqiyah site will be converted to mines, and all the resources which are already there are going to be utilized efficiently,” he said.

The mining site is also expected to benefit the community around the area through job creation and development, Al-Shamrani said.

The Kingdom is hoping to attract both local and international investors, he added, as long as they meet the qualifications.

Some 26 million tons of gold, zinc and copper are set to be excavated at a site in Riyadh after the Saudi government gave the dig a green light.

The Al-Khunayqiyah site already had a number of extensive explorations carried out and building three dimensional geological models.