Maaden’s Waad Al Shamal begins exports today

Saudi Arabian Mining Company (MAADEN) said its subsidiary Maaden Waad Al Shamal Phosphate Co. (MWSPC) exported its first shipment of phosphate fertilizers today.

The company transferred 26,000 tons of diammonium phosphate (DAP) by rail to the Ras Al Khair port on the Kingdom’s east coast, after which it was shipped from there, the company said in a statement.

Developing Waad Al Shamal projects is part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, Saudi energy minister and Maaden chairman Khalid Al-Falih said in the statement.

More developments are underway, following the Saudi government’s allocation of SAR 2 billion towards completing the infrastructure at Waad Al Shamal, which will include an industrial city set to attract private sector investments, he added.

MWSPC is 60 percent-owned by Maaden, while US-based Mosaic Co. and Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) have 25 and 15 percent stakes, respectively.

Saudi-listed Maaden, which currently exports fertilizers to 16 countries, signed construction contracts for MWSPC in 2014.The company announced the start of trial operations on July 8.

The SAR 28 billion ($7.5 billion) Waad Al Shamal Phosphate project has an annual capacity of 16 million tons, of which final products include three million tons of phosphate fertilizers and 440,000 tons of purified phosphoric acid (PPA), sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP), and monocalcium phosphate and dicalcium phosphate (DCP/MCP).