KSA and the UK will partner to shore up their mineral capacities: KSA’s Industry and Mineral Resources Minister Bandar Al Khorayef and UK Secretary of State for Business and Trade Kemi Badenoch signed a bilateral cooperation agreement last week aimed at jointly developing their critical minerals supply chains, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Thursday.

What will happen: The agreement will see both countries strengthen the global supply of critical minerals and prioritize the sustainable production of critical minerals essential to EV, wind turbine, and solar panel manufacturing. Both countries will collaborate on critical minerals strategies while promoting the repurposing of rare earths critical to the clean energy transition, SPA quotes Badenoch as saying. The UK and Saudi Arabia will also join forces on advocating for the freeflow of critical minerals at multilateral forums in a bid to reorient the global mining industry toward adoption of ESG standards, Badenoch added.

And it’s needed: “Lithium supply will need to increase by approximately 700%, nickel production by around 100%, and copper production by roughly 50% between 2020-30 compared to 2010-2020 within a 1.5°C pathway,” Al Khorayef said, adding that the transition to net zero and meeting the 1.5°C Paris-agreed warming target will require a considerable increase in mineral production capacity.

Months in the making: Back in January, Saudi Arabia and the UK put pen to paper on theirfirst-ever partnership on critical minerals during the Future Minerals Forum which took place in Saudi Arabia that month. Both sides had noted they would finalize the details of the partnership agreement “in the coming months.”

REMEMBER- KSA is looking to tap into its full mining potential: A joint venture between State-owned Saudi mining company Maaden and the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), is reportedly prepared to deploy over USD 15 bn of capital for investments in the coming years, upping its previous target of SAR 11.9 bn (USD 3.2 bn) for the venture, almost 5x. KSA says it has untapped metals and minerals — including copper, zinc, phosphate, and gold — collectively worth USD 1.3 tn

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