Aramco and Saudi Arabian Mining Company, Maaden, signed a shareholders’ agreement on August 18, 2026, to establish a joint venture for mineral exploration and hard-rock mining in Saudi Arabia, extending a collaboration first outlined in January 2025.
The proposed company would explore an area of approximately 182,000 sq km within the Arabian Platform, a region equivalent to nearly 10 per cent of the Kingdom’s land area.
Maaden is expected to hold 51 per cent of the venture and Aramco 49 per cent.
The agreement remains conditional on corporate and regulatory approvals, including antitrust clearance, and does not establish production volumes, development schedules or capital expenditure.
It provides for exploration activity in Zone 4, also known as the Transition Zone, which runs parallel to the Arabian Shield in a band approximately 100 km wide.
The agreement centres on copper, alongside zinc, lead and rare earth elements.
Aramco stated that copper is increasingly used in electric vehicles, electricity networks, energy storage and renewable-energy systems.
It valued the global copper market at approximately $250 billion and said it is projected to exceed $400 billion by 2035.
The company also described copper as accounting for more than 20 per cent of the $1.2 trillion mined-metals market.
The companies are combining different resource bases and technical capabilities.
Aramco said it has accumulated more than 90 years of geological and geophysical data from its operations in Saudi Arabia, while Maaden has operated a large single-jurisdiction exploration programme across the Arabian Shield.
The proposed partnership shifts the work towards the Arabian Platform and focuses on identifying mineral targets before any potential mine development.
PLATFORM DATA & EXPLORATION SYSTEMS
The Arabian Platform is the proposed venture’s defined exploration setting.
Aramco said Zone 4 is a significant new area for mineral discovery, stretching along the Transition Zone parallel to the Arabian Shield.
The expected exploration area is about 182,000 sq km, while the zone itself is approximately 100 km wide.
Aramco’s intended contribution is its existing subsurface knowledge, geological and geophysical data, high-performance computing and artificial-intelligence tools.
Saleh Al Saleh, Aramco Vice-President of Transition Minerals, said the company had acquired and analysed what it described as the largest amount of geological and geophysical data collected in a single basin within the Kingdom.
Aramco stated that the information would be used to identify mineral prospects within the venture area.
Maaden’s stated contribution is mining and mineral-exploration expertise.
Darryl Clark, Maaden Executive Vice-President for Exploration, said Maaden had been advancing exploration activity across the Arabian Shield and that the new company would take that work into a separate area of the Kingdom.
The shareholders’ agreement describes the company’s intended focus as exploration and hard-rock mining, with no resource estimates, drilling results, project economics or mine-development plans included in the announcement.
The companies said computational algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing would be used for regional screening, target definition and mineral discovery.
Aramco stated that the tools are intended to identify areas most likely to contain copper and other minerals, reducing the time required to progress from initial regional assessment to the definition of exploration targets.
The announcement does not provide a timeline for surveys, drilling campaigns, resource delineation or feasibility studies.
The agreement follows a January 2025 non-binding heads-of-terms announcement, which envisaged a broader potential joint venture for energy-transition minerals.
That earlier proposal included the extraction of lithium from high-concentration deposits and the advancement of direct-lithium-extraction technologies.
Aramco said it had identified lithium concentrations of up to 400 parts per million in several areas within its existing operations.
The August 2026 shareholders’ agreement identifies a more specific geographical focus and a different primary mineral emphasis.
It centres on copper and other hard-rock minerals in Zone 4, while the January 2025 announcement included potential lithium extraction from high-concentration deposits. Aramco’s 2026 announcement does not state that lithium extraction forms part of the Zone 4 programme.
ALIGNING WITH MINERAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
Copper is identified as the venture’s main target mineral, while Aramco stated that its relevance has increased across electric vehicles, power networks, energy storage and renewable-energy systems.
The company said the global copper market is currently valued at approximately $250 billion and projected to exceed $400 billion by 2035, while copper represents more than 20 per cent of the $1.2 trillion mined-metals market.
These market figures were published by Aramco as part of the joint-venture announcement.
Zinc, lead and rare earth elements are also included in the exploration mandate.
Aramco described them as energy-transition minerals that are expected to be important to future industries.
Reuters reported that the venture will focus principally on copper alongside zinc, lead and rare earth elements, and confirmed the stated ownership structure and exploration area.
The partnership sits within Saudi Arabia’s published effort to identify and develop domestic mineral resources.
In January 2025, Maaden said its exploration programme across the Arabian Shield was intended to help assess an estimated $2.5 trillion mineral endowment.
The estimate is attributed to Maaden in the 2025 joint announcement and is not a mineral-resource statement for the Transition Zone or for the proposed Aramco-Maaden venture.
The 2026 shareholders’ agreement identifies the immediate next procedural step: Fulfilment of its conditions precedent.
Those include required corporate and regulatory approvals, together with antitrust clearance.
Once incorporated, the company would be expected to combine Aramco’s existing information and computing tools with Maaden’s exploration and mining capability for activity in Zone 4.
No timetable for incorporation, exploration expenditure, drilling, resource reporting, mine construction or commercial production was published with the agreement.
The announced scope is limited to the planned joint venture, its ownership structure, the Transition Zone exploration area and the named mineral priorities.