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Saudi Aramco's oil facility in Khurais, Saudi Arabia. Picture: MAXIM SHEMETOV/REUTERS
Saudi Aramco's oil facility in Khurais, Saudi Arabia. Picture: MAXIM SHEMETOV/REUTERS

Riyadh — Saudi Arabian state oil giant Aramco’s project to extract lithium is “promising, but not yet commercially viable”, the kingdom’s mining minister Bandar Alkhorayef said on Wednesday.

Aramco has partnered with the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (Kaust) for the pilot, he said.

Lithium Infinity, also known as Lihytech, a start-up launched out of Kaust, is leading the extraction project with co-operation from Saudi mining company Ma’aden and Aramco.

Lithium is a component in the batteries of electric cars, laptops and smartphones. Reuters previously reported that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates’ national oil companies planned to extract the mineral from oil run-offs.

Aramco and Ma’aden on Wednesday signed a non-binding term sheet to explore the creation of a minerals exploration and mining joint venture in the kingdom.

The proposed venture “would focus on energy transition minerals, including extracting lithium from high concentration deposits and advancing cost-effective direct lithium extraction technologies,” the two companies said during the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh.

Commercial production of lithium could potentially start by 2027.

Alkhorayef also confirmed that Saudi Arabian mining company Manara Minerals was looking at investing in Pakistan’s Reko Diq mine, saying that the Saudi Development Fund could contribute more than $100m to Pakistan’s mining infrastructure.

“Part of what we are looking at is how we can help Pakistan also in some infrastructure,” Alkhorayef said in an interview on the sidelines of the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh.

“Without that infrastructure, the economics of the deal are not attractive, so through the Saudi Development Fund we are thinking about how we can finance it.”

Manara, a joint venture between state-controlled Ma’aden and the $925bn Public Investment Fund, was set up as part of the kingdom’s efforts to diversify its economy away from oil, including by buying minority stakes in assets overseas.

Executives from Manara visited Pakistan in May last year for talks about buying a stake in the Reko Diq mine, considered one of the world’s largest underdeveloped copper-gold areas by global mining company Barrick Gold, which owns the project jointly with Pakistan.

Reuters

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