Ma'aden advances Saudi phosphate project
22 May 2012
Pasadena, California – Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma’aden) has awarded Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. a contract to provide a ‘bankable’ feasibility study/FEED for its Umm Wu’al phosphate project in the Sirhan-Turaif region, Saudi Arabia.
Ma’aden is proceeding with the development of its Umm Wu’al project, a major phosphate resource in the north of Saudi Arabia, to supply merchant grade phosphoric acid to the fertiliser, food and animal feed industries.
The greenfield project is located 35km northeast of Turaif and about 100km to the west of the Ma’aden Phosphate Co. ‘beneficiation’ complex. The project envisages an open pit mine and beneficiation process, adding 1.5 million tonnes to Ma’aden’s planned annual phosphate capacity.
In addition to the new phosphoric acid production, the project will supply phosphate intermediate products, including purified phosphoric acid, sodium tri-poly-phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate and di-calcium phosphate, to augment Ma’aden’s phosphate product mix.
The overall project requires a power distribution plant and associated infrastructure. It would principally use existing port, rail and infrastructure developments put in place by the Saudi government as part of a national program of infrastructure enhancement to deliver regional development.
Ma’aden was established in 1997 to facilitate the development of Saudi Arabia’s non-petroleum mineral resources and to diversify the Saudi economy away from the petroleum and petrochemical sectors.
