The Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma’aden) celebrated the inauguration of the industrial city of Wa’ad Al Shamal by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz. Wa’ad Al Shamal is the new centre of the Saudi phosphate industry; a world class industrial & mining city in the Northern Borders region.
In partnership with the Ministry of Energy, Industry and Minerals, and a variety of public and private organizations from Saudi Arabia and around the world, Ma’aden led the development of Wa’ad Al Shamal with the aim of capturing the full value of the Kingdom’s significant phosphate reserves.
As the largest ever industrial project in the interior of the country, Wa’ad Al Shamal will involve total capital investments of $22.7bn. It is home to the Ma’aden Wa’ad Al Shamal Phosphate Company, a $8bn joint venture between Ma’aden (60%), Mosaic (25%) and SABIC (15%) with a capacity to produce 3 million tonnes per annum of phosphate fertilizer for global farming markets.
“Wa’ad Al Shamal is a key component in the development of Saudi Arabia’s vast phosphate reserves and it is the cornerstone of Ma’aden’s integrated phosphate strategy,” said Darren Davis, Ma’aden President and CEO. “With our local and international partners, we’ve built state of the art facilities at Wa’ad Al Shamal which deliver competitive production costs and efficient logistical links to world markets. Upon this strong foundation, Ma’aden and Saudi Arabia will become leaders in the phosphate industry, while also delivering long term sustainable economic development to communities in the north of the country.”
Ma’aden recently announced the start of construction of the third phase of its phosphate projects, Phosphate 3, which will include further expansion of the Wa’ad Al Shamal plants. Upon completion of Phosphate 3, Ma’aden will become the world’s second largest producer of phosphate fertilizer, with total anticipated capacity of 9 million tonnes per annum.
Ma’aden’s fully integrated model builds on access to key infrastructure including a 1,500 km mineral railway and a world class port at Ras Al Khair which allows Ma’aden to deliver multiple varieties of fertilizer to customers in over a dozen countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Contributing to Saudi Vision 2030 goals of economic diversification in non-oil sectors, Wa’ad Al Shamal now offers multiple new downstream investment opportunities in phosphate, sustainable economic development for local communities, and long term career opportunities for thousands of Saudis.
From the start of the Wa’ad Al Shamal project, Ma’aden worked to ensure that local small businesses benefited in a sustainable way. Hundreds of new local companies were registered to participate in the project’s development. Ma’aden also partnered with global leaders in education to deliver vocational and professional training to thousands of local students. The National Mining Institute and the Saudi Mining Polytechnic will act as a lasting legacy of the ambitious industrial development at Wa’ad Al Shamal and the surrounding area.
