The Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma'aden) explores and extracts phosphates, aluminum minerals, industrial and precious metals in a 60,000 sq. km (23,166 sq. mi.) area of the Arabian Peninsula. The company has a total production capacity of 14.2 tons of silver and 9.4 tons of gold per year, the latter of which, it will increase to 14 tons by 2009.

Ma'aden entered into a strategic partnership with Saudi Basic Industries CorporationSaudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) in June 2007, to build one of the largest phosphate mines in the world, a SAR13 billion (USD3.47 billion) project to develop Saudi Arabia's Ras Al Zour phosphate reserves into fertilizers. When it is completed in 2010, the mine is expected to yield 3 million metric tons a year of diammonia phosphate, almost 10% of the world's traded volume of the product.

The company entered into a joint venture with Canada-based Alcan Incorporated in April 2007 to build one of the largest vertically integrated operations of its kind in the world. Ma'aden would hold the controlling stake in a SAR20.85 billion (USD5.56 billion) integrated aluminum mining project, which will feature a 1,400 megawatt power plant; a 90-million-metric-ton bauxite reserve in Al Zabirah in northern Saudi Arabia; an alumina refinery, with a capacity of 1.6 million tons a year; an aluminum smelter with a capacity of 720,000 tons a year. The first metal is expected during the first quarter of 2011 and the first alumina in 2012. Over 70% of the alumina produced will be for export.

With a paid-up capital of SAR8 billion (USD2.1 billion) as of 2006, Ma'aden will undergo an IPO in 2008, offering 50% of its shares to raise SAR9.3 billion (USD2.5 billion) on the Saudi Stock Exchange.

Ma'aden announced in August 2007 that it is planning to invest SAR35 billion (USD9.1 billion) by 2012 to increase its participation in the country's mining sector.