A record number of Australian companies and their representatives are heading to Riyadh and the world’s fastest growing mining forum early in 2025. In only its fourth year, the Future Minerals Forum has catapulted into a position as one of the world’s major mining industry gatherings.
“The conference plenary will be the largest ever with 20,000 audience from all around the world,” Saudi Arabia vice minister of mining affairs, Khalid Almudaifer, said this week on an Australia Saudi Business Council webinar. Last year a record 14,000-plus people attended the forum.
He was joined by the kingdom’s minister of industry and mineral resources, Bandar Alkhorayef, Australia’s federal minister for resources, Madeleine King, and ASBC president Sam Jamsheedi.
More than 130 Australian companies are said to be heading to the Saudi capital and the country will have its first pavilion at the Future Minerals Forum.
Trade between Australia and Saudi Arabia has been growing off a low base, mainly farm products and pharmaceuticals from Australia to Saudi and students from the Middle East’s largest economy coming to Australia to study.
Alkhorayef said Australia’s vast mining services sector, including its technology and know-how, were attractive to Saudi Arabia as it advanced domestic mineral exploration and development under its Vision 2030 economic diversification program.
The country is investing heavily in the circa-50% of the Arabian-Nubian Shield under its territory, building mineral processing and downstream industry, creating a new generation of geologists and mining engineers, and forming an offshore mineral asset portfolio via Manara Minerals.
“The Arabian-Nubian Shield is equal in total area to the Western Australia shield [Yilgarn, Pilbara and Kimberley cratons] and almost the same geological age,” Almudaifer said on the webcast.
“However, the contribution to the mineral supply of the world of the Arabian-Nubian shield is only maybe 5% of the Western Australian shield.”
Exploration companies active in Saudi Arabia, including foreign firms, had grown from only a handful 10 years ago to more than 130 today. Almudaifer said the area under active exploration grew fivefold in 2024 “and it’s going to grow five times in 2025”.
Alkhorayef said Saudi Arabia and Australia shared a “vision of leveraging natural resources to drive economic diversification and sustainability”.
“When we look at Australia it is one of the countries where the mining sector has been pivotal in [its] contribution to GDP and growth,” he said.
“It is a country where we also see there’s a balance between the interest of investors and the interest of the nation. We admire many of the policies that Australia has been adopting.
“But we all know that having the resource is not enough.
“The resource is one part of the equation but the … mining companies who understand the market and understand the technologies [and] are able to bring knowledge [and] expertise and operate different assets and sites efficiently is very important.
“The other thing we see as quite important is mining services. This is an area where Saudi Arabia needs to grow and we seek to get people interested in investing and bringing capabilities from different countries, especially Australia, where you have a great deal of expertise in mining services.
“Saudi Arabia is a great place for Australian companies, especially in the service area.”
King said Australia was going through its own mineral transition, from bulk commodities such as coal and iron ore, to greater production of high-value specialty metals and more downstream processing.
The country was crying out for increased foreign investment, from the right sources.
“We are a relatively small country by population so we need that investment of capital,” she said.
The minister said the large Australian contingent heading to the Future Minerals Forum, and reciprocal connection of the two governments and industry at the IMARC event in Sydney, would help speed development of a safer, more sustainable and profitable global mining industry.
“These conferences are important,” she said.
“It is about enabling that tech transfer – the tech transfer and sharing of capabilities between governments and private enterprise.
“As the saying goes, the rising tide lifts all boats.
“We want everyone to be better at mining services so we have a more sustainable industry, a safer industry, and quite rightly a more profitable industry, because more profit means more investment into resources.”