Aramco and Maaden signed a joint venture to explore copper and rare earths across a 182,000 sq km zone in Saudi Arabia, using AI to accelerate discovery.
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Saudi Aramco (2222.SA) and Saudi Arabian Mining Co., known as Maaden (1211.SA), signed a shareholders’ agreement to form a joint venture that will explore for copper and other energy-transition minerals in the Kingdom, the two companies said in a joint statement.
The JV is 51% owned by Maaden and 49% by Aramco. It will focus on Zone-4, a strip of the Arabian Platform known as the Transition Zone, which spans roughly 182,000 square kilometers – nearly 10% of Saudi Arabia’s land area. The zone runs in a 100-kilometer-wide band parallel to the Arabian Shield, a largely unexplored region that the companies said holds potential for copper, zinc, lead, and rare earth elements.
Copper is the main target. The JV plans to use computational algorithms, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing to identify the most promising areas for mineral deposits, accelerating the process from regional screening to target definition and discovery, the statement said.
The deal gives Aramco, the world’s largest oil exporter, a direct stake in the supply of minerals critical to electrification and renewable energy. For Maaden, already the region’s largest mining company, the partnership brings Aramco’s financial resources and geological data to its existing exploration portfolio.
The timing fits Saudi Arabia’s push to diversify its economy beyond oil under Vision 2030. Mining is a pillar of that plan, and the Kingdom has been working to attract investment into its mineral sector, which includes significant deposits of phosphate, bauxite, and gold. The JV targets a metal in short supply globally: copper demand is expected to outstrip mine supply by the end of the decade, according to the International Copper Study Group.
Riyadh also sees a strategic opportunity in the global shift away from Chinese dominance of rare-earth processing. The JV explicitly includes rare earth elements in its exploration mandate, though the statement did not specify which ones.
The shareholders’ agreement and the JV’s incorporation are conditional on corporate and regulatory approvals, including antitrust clearance. The companies signed non-binding heads of terms in January 2025 to form a similar venture focused on lithium, according to data available with Argaam.
Neither company disclosed a timeline for the deal’s closing.
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