UK to sign critical minerals partnership with Saudi Arabia
Britain needs a secure, long-term supply of critical minerals, such as copper, lithium and nickel.
Saudi Arabian Mining Co. called off talks to swap two units for shares in its Bahraini rival that would have created one of the world’s biggest aluminum producers.
Maaden, as the Saudi company is known, had said in September that it was planning to sell the entire share capital of Maaden Aluminium Co. and Maaden Bauxite and Alumina Co. to Aluminium Bahrain BSC, also called Alba. In exchange, Alba would issue new shares for allotment to Maaden.
Alba’s stock dropped as much as 10% in Bahrain trading — the most since September 2022 — while Maaden fell 1.5%. The companies on Monday didn’t disclose why the deal talks were called off. They had late last year extended their non-binding terms by four months.
Following the announcement in September, Maaden had signed a separate agreement to buy shares in Alba that were held by a unit of petrochemical company Saudi Basic Industries Corp., in a deal valued at about $1 billion.
Maaden and Alba have become major players in the global aluminum industry in recent years, particularly in value-added products that have historically been dominated by a handful of suppliers. Their expanded company would have been one of the world’s largest aluminum producers, competing with leading smelters in China and Russia.
Aluminum is the most widely used metal after steel, and demand has been surging in fast-growing sectors like solar energy and electric vehicles, even as orders from traditional industrial sectors slow.
Unlike copper, aluminum prices have been pegged back for much of this century due to oversupply in China, but many analysts see a rally ahead as the country nears a cap on output, and trade barriers crimp flows of metal into international markets.
Production in Europe has also slumped in the wake of the region’s energy crisis, and buyers there have become increasingly reliant on Middle Eastern suppliers as shipments from Russia have declined.
(By Kateryna Kadabashy)
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