Saudi Arabia is looking beneath the surface for its next generation of economic opportunities.

Aramco and Maaden have signed a shareholders’ agreement to establish a new joint venture focused on mineral exploration and hard-rock mining across approximately 182,000 sq. km of Saudi Arabia — an area equivalent to nearly 10% of the Kingdom’s total land mass.

The proposed venture will be 51% owned by Maaden and 49% by Aramco, subject to the required approvals. Its primary focus will be copper, alongside other minerals important to the energy transition, including zinc, lead and rare earth elements.

But the scale of the land being explored is only one part of the story.

What Happens When Oil Expertise Meets Mining?

For more than 90 years, Aramco has accumulated an extraordinary amount of geological and geophysical knowledge about what lies beneath Saudi Arabia.

Now, some of that expertise is being applied to a different resource opportunity.

The new venture intends to combine Aramco's subsurface knowledge, high-performance computing and AI capabilities with Maaden's mineral exploration and mine-development expertise.

That combination is particularly interesting.

Rather than approaching mineral exploration only through conventional surveying and drilling, the partnership intends to use advanced computational algorithms and AI to identify areas more likely to contain valuable mineral deposits.

In simple terms:

Decades of geological data + mining expertise + AI could help Saudi Arabia explore smarter and faster.

Why Copper Matters

The venture's emphasis on copper is significant.

Copper sits at the centre of many technologies shaping the global energy transition, including electric vehicles, electricity networks, renewable energy systems and energy storage.

Aramco estimates the global copper market at approximately $250 billion today, potentially exceeding $400 billion by 2035.

Saudi Arabia therefore isn't simply looking for another commodity.

It is positioning itself around materials that could become increasingly strategic to the global economy.

Mining Is Becoming a Bigger Saudi Story

For decades, Saudi Arabia's natural-resource story was dominated by oil.

That picture is gradually becoming broader.

The Kingdom currently estimates its mineral wealth at approximately SAR 9.3 trillion ($2.5 trillion), while mining has become an important part of its economic diversification ambitions.

And that creates a very different question:

What happens if even part of that geological potential can be converted into commercially viable mines and downstream industries?

The opportunity would extend considerably beyond extracting minerals.

The Opportunity Around the Mine

This is where the story becomes particularly relevant for businesses and investors.

A growing mining industry creates demand across an entire ecosystem:

Exploration technology • Geological services • AI and data analytics • Drilling • Heavy equipment • Engineering • Logistics • Industrial infrastructure • Processing • Renewable energy • Water solutions • Environmental services • Workforce development

And eventually, the bigger opportunity may be further downstream.

Instead of simply extracting copper or rare earth elements, Saudi Arabia has the opportunity to build industries that process, manufacture and create higher-value products from those resources inside the Kingdom.

That is where mining starts becoming an industrial strategy.

From Energy Producer to Resources Powerhouse?

Saudi Arabia already possesses one of the world's most sophisticated energy ecosystems.

What is interesting now is how some of that capability is being redeployed into new sectors.

Aramco bringing decades of subsurface intelligence into mining is a good example.

Maaden brings the mining capability.

Technology brings another layer.

And Saudi Arabia provides the geological scale.

The result could be much more significant than one joint venture.

It is another indication that the Kingdom is working to turn its mineral resources into industries, supply chains, technologies and investment opportunities.

Oil transformed Saudi Arabia once.

What lies beneath the Kingdom beyond oil could help shape its next chapter.

Saudi Is Calling — Your Window to Opportunities.