Saudi Arabia's Mansourah-Massarah Gold Project

In Saudi Arabia's Central Arabian Gold Region, the Mansourah-Massarah gold project entails the development of open-pit mines Mansourah and Massarah, as well as a greenfield mineral concentrator and gold processing plant. Ma'aden Gold and Base Metals Firm (MGBM), a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's 75% state-owned mining company Ma'aden, is developing the USD 880 million project. The integrated mining project's bankable feasibility study (BFS) was completed in 2018, and the key contracts were awarded in the first half of 2019.

The Mansourah-Massarah project, which is set to start production in the second quarter of 2022, is expected to produce 250,000 ounces of gold per year during a 12-year mine life. Ma'aden's Mansourah-Massarah project will be the company's largest gold project to date.

Ma'aden's newest mining operation, Mansourah-Massarah, is located in the Central Arabian Gold Region, stretches from the Red Sea coast to the heart of Saudi Arabia. Ad Duwayhi, Al Amar, Bulghah & Sukhaybarat, As Suq, and Mahd Ad Dhahab are the company's five operational gold mines in the region. The Mansourah deposit is around 460 kilometers northeast of Jeddah, whereas the Massarah location is about 460 kilometers southwest of Riyadh in the Makkah Region. The Najd Fault System structures separate the Mansourah and Masarrah deposits by 6.5 kilometers.

The ore from the Mansourah and Massarah deposits will be extracted using the traditional open-pit mining process of drill-blast-load-haul operations. The ore from the mine will be trucked to a shared processing facility where gold will be recovered using carbon-in-leach (CIL) and pressure oxidation (POX) methods. The processing plant at Mansourah-Massarah will handle up to four million tonnes of ore per year, producing up to 250,000 ounces of gold.

The engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the Mansourah-Massarah mineral concentrator and gold processing facility was granted in April 2019 to a combination of Finnish technology company Outotec and Indian engineering and construction business Larsen & Toubro (L&T). Outotec will be in charge of process equipment engineering, procurement, and delivery, as well as commissioning, start-up help, and training services.

The Mansourah deposit is assessed to have 27.7 million tonnes (Mt) of proved and probable ore reserves grading 5.06 grams per tonne of gold, while the Massarah open-pit deposits are assessed to be 17.3 million tonnes (Mt) grading 1.99 grams per tonne of gold.

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