The companies have signed a shareholders’ agreement to establish a joint venture covering Zone-4, also known as the Transition Zone, within the Arabian Platform. Maaden will hold a 51% stake and Aramco 49%, subject to corporate, regulatory, and antitrust approvals.
The exploration area spans about 182,000 square kilometers, equivalent to nearly 10% of Saudi Arabia’s land area. It forms a roughly 100-kilometer-wide zone running parallel to the Arabian Shield, the ancient geological formation that underlies much of the kingdom’s west.
The venture will initially focus on copper, alongside zinc, lead, and rare earth elements. The partnership is designed to accelerate mineral discovery and support domestic mining and processing value chains.
For Aramco, the project represents an expansion beyond its traditional oil and gas activities. The energy company plans to use more than 90 years of geological and geophysical information gathered across the kingdom, together with high-performance computing and artificial intelligence, to identify areas with the greatest mineral potential.
“Over 90 years, Aramco has accumulated and analyzed the largest amount of geological and geophysical data ever acquired in a single basin for the Kingdom,” Saleh M. Al Saleh, Aramco’s vice president of transition minerals, said.
He said Maaden’s mining expertise, combined with Aramco’s data, computing capabilities, and AI, could help accelerate the discovery of key transition minerals at low cost.
Maaden, the Middle East’s largest multi-commodity mining and metals producer, will bring exploration and mine-development expertise to the venture. The company has already been conducting a major exploration program across the Arabian Shield.
Darryl Clark, Maaden’s executive vice president for exploration, said the partnership would extend that effort into a new geological area and create opportunities to discover minerals needed to support the energy transition.
Copper is expected to be the main target. The metal is essential to electric vehicles, electricity grids, renewable energy systems, and energy storage, making it strategically important as countries invest in electrification.
Saudi Arabia has increasingly positioned mining as a pillar of its Vision 2030 economic diversification strategy. The kingdom estimates its mineral resources at more than 9.3 trillion riyals (USD 2.5 trillion) and wants to increase mining’s contribution to gross domestic product to 240 billion riyals by 2030.
The government has been opening more ground for exploration as it seeks to attract investment and develop domestic mineral supply chains. In 2025, it offered 50,000 square kilometers for mineral exploration, according to the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources.
The Aramco-Maaden venture could give Saudi Arabia a new advantage by combining a mining company’s field expertise with the oil giant’s extensive subsurface data and technological infrastructure. Advanced algorithms and AI will be used to narrow large exploration areas into specific targets, potentially reducing the time and cost involved in moving from geological screening to drilling and discovery.
The partnership also reflects a broader global race to secure supplies of minerals needed for clean-energy technologies. Copper and rare earth elements are becoming increasingly important to manufacturers of vehicles, power equipment, batteries, and other technologies, while governments are seeking to reduce reliance on concentrated overseas supply chains.
The agreement builds on plans first announced in January 2025 and marks a further step in Saudi Arabia’s attempt to establish itself as a significant player in the global minerals value chain.
Both companies are profitable in their core businesses. Aramco reported a second-quarter net profit of USD 32.7 billion, up 42% year on year, while Maaden’s second-quarter profit rose 13% to nearly USD 582 million. The venture gives both groups an opportunity to deploy capabilities in a sector central to Saudi Arabia’s post-oil ambitions.