RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Mining Minister Bandar Alkhorayef told Reuters on Wednesday that mining company Manara Minerals was looking at investing in Pakistan’s Reko Diq mine, saying that the Saudi Development Fund could contribute over $100 million to Pakistan’s mining infrastructure.
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.
Manara, a joint venture between state-controlled miner Ma’aden and the $925 billion Public Investment Fund (PIF), 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.
“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.”
He also spoke about Saudi Arabian state oil giant Aramco’s project to extract lithium, saying it is “promising, but not yet commercially viable.”
Aramco has partnered with the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) for the pilot, Bandar Alkhorayef said.
Lithium Infinity, also known as Lihytech, a start-up launched out of KAUST, is leading the extraction project with cooperation from Saudi mining company Ma’aden and Aramco.
Lithium is a key 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 runoffs.
Saudi Arabia says SFD could contribute over $100 million to Pakistan’s mining infrastructure
https://arab.news/mydk6
Saudi Arabia says SFD could contribute over $100 million to Pakistan’s mining infrastructure
- The Kingdom is hosting a three-day Future Minerals Forum summit from Jan. 14-16 in Saudi capital
- Saudi minister Bandar Alkhorayef says Manara Minerals looking at investing in Pakistan’s Reko Diq mine
Pakistani forces kill 24 militants in restive province bordering Afghanistan
- The militants were killed in separate intelligence-based operations in Orakzai and Khyber districts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
- Pakistan witnessed a 28 percent increase in militant attacks in Jan., with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa accounting for 38 out of 87 attacks nationwide
ISLAMABAD: Security forces have killed 24 Pakistani Taliban militants in two separate engagements in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, the Pakistani military said on Friday.
In recent years, Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks, mainly by the Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), targeting security forces and police in KP, which borders Afghanistan.
The militants were killed in intelligence-based operations in KP’s Orakzai and Khyber districts conducted on reports about their presence, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing.
“Sanitization operations are being conducted to eliminate any other Indian-sponsored kharji [TTP militant] found in the area,” the ISPR said.
There was no immediate response by New Delhi to the Pakistani military’s statement.
Pakistan recorded a 28 percent increase in militant attacks in Jan. as compared to the previous month, with 87 incidents occurring across the country, the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) said in its report this month. Of these, 38 attacks took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 27 in Balochistan, where authorities have been battling a separatist insurgency, and two in the Punjab province.
Islamabad has frequently accused Afghanistan of allowing its soil and India of backing militant groups, including the TTP, for attacks against Pakistan. Kabul and New Delhi have consistently denied this.
