Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) is developing its third phosphate fertiliser manufacturing facility which will cost the region’s biggest mining and industrial conglomerate an estimated SR24bn ($6.4bn).

The project is expected to be implemented in phases and will eventually add a further 3 million tonnes per year of production capacity, Maaden said in a statement to Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul), where its shares are traded.

This fertiliser plant is subject to completion of feasibility studies and necessary approvals and the manufacturing facility is expected to reach the peak production in 2024, the statement added.

The mining and industrial sectors are key parts of Riyadh’s broader agenda of transforming its hydrocarbon-dependent economy in the wake of a more than 50 per cent slide in the price of the oil from a mid-2014 levels of $115 a barrel. The government is keen to direct subsidies more toward mining sector to explore vast untapped reserves of bauxite, used to make aluminium, as well as phosphate, gold, copper and uranium.

Maaden plans to rope in SR97bn in annual revenue and add 90,000 jobs within five years. The company is at the heart of government strategy to increase mining sector annual revenues to SR240bn in next decades and a half. Riyadh aims to tripling the sector’s contribution to the GDP by 2030, kingdom’s energy minister Khalid al-Falih said earlier this month.

Maaden in October said that one of its subsidiaries, Maaden Bauxite and Alumina Company, has started commercial production at a new bauxite mine and alumina refinery. The unit, which is 74.9 per cent owned by Maaden and 25.1 per cent by US’ Alcoa, could begin selling its surplus output into regional and international markets by early 2017.

In July, it announced that Maaden Barrick Copper Company (MBCC) had started commercial production at the Jabal Sayid copper mine in Saudi Arabia. The operation is expected to produce an average of 45,000 t/y of copper concentrate.