Saudi Arabia’s Ma’aden awards mining services contract for its biggest gold mining project

Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma’aden) announced on Wednesday via its twitter account that it has signed a contract with an international consortium to secure mining services for the Kingdom's largest gold project. [A contract of undisclosed value was awarded to joint venture Jac Rijk Al-Rushaid Contracting & Services Co. to operate drilling, scaling, loading, hauling, re-handling, ore control, dewatering, crusher feed, and all related activities at the mines, Ma’aden said in a subsequent press statement on 13 June. The JV between the Netherlands-based Jac Rijk BV and Saudi company Al-Rushaid Group is currently managing operations at Ma’aden's Ad Duwayhi and As Suq gold mines.] The Tadawul-listed company said the Mansoura and Masarrah project would produce 250,000 ounces of gold annually when fully operational. 

In May 2019, Zawya Projects had reported that Ma'aden has awarded the engineering, procurement and construction contract for the project to a consortium of India's Larsen & Toubro and Finland's Outotec. In a separate statement in April 2019, Ma'aden had said total investment in the project is expected to reach 3.3 billion Saudi riyals ($880 million). The statement noted that the processing plant would be capable of processing up to four million tonnes per annum of the complex refractory ores contained in the deposit – the first time such ores have been mined and processed in the Middle East. The company's total gold production in the first quarter of 2021 was 97,000 ounces, according to an investor presentation in Arabic shared on Tadawul last month. It said the Mansoura and Masarrah Gold Project would be completed in the second quarter of 2022.