It’s a mining-heavy Monday morning

Good morning, friends. We’ve got lots of mining news for you this morning — setting up a series of stories over the coming months that go deep into what we think is becoming one of the most interesting sectors in MENA+.

You already know that we think infrastructure, AI, and defense will be big investment themes across the region in the coming decade as players from the Gulf to Egypt and beyond absorb lessons from the (still simmering) US-Iran war.

All three need minerals and metals — and the imperative to own the full supply chain has never been clearer thanks to the war. Whether you’re building a data center, producing EVs and drones, or building out energy infrastructure (green or conventional), companies in the Big Three industries need copper, gold, critical minerals, and more. All of them are found on the Arabian-Nubian Shield, which spans from Egypt and Sudan to Saudi and Yemen — it’s the last real frontier in the global mining industry.

We went twice to Egypt’s Eastern Desert for a deep dive into the economics of mining on the shield with the folks at Ankh Resources, a company at the forefront of a drive to bring back to life the industry that transformed Pharaonic Egypt into the world’s gold superpower.

Mining is also a big part of Canada’s re-engagement with the Arab world under pro-business Prime Minister Mark Carney. Ottawa may not yet have that pipeline of bankable, “shovel-ready” projects it promised the UAE, but its companies are world leaders in mining — and they’ve inked a series of interesting agreements in Saudi Arabia.

It’s a sea change for Canada, whose previous prime minister torched relations with both the UAE and Saudi — ties that Carney is bringing to new life as Canada looks to build trade and investment partnerships that sidestep the United States, its largest (and, recently, most protectionist) historical partner. –Patrick