Industry, Logistics & Shipping

Gulf Mining looks for strategic partner for SOP project

Gulf Mining Group, one of the largest mining and mineral processing corporations in the sultanate, will be scouting the international market for a strategic partner to support the development of its sulphate of potash (SOP) project - the first of its kind in the sultanate, said a report.

The move comes as Gulf Mining Group prepares to wrap up a bankable feasibility study imperative to the goal of securing the necessary funding for the estimated $300 million project, according to the company’s vice chairman Mohammed Yahya Al Shabibi, added the Oman Daily Observer report.

Al Shabibi said that the company is close to completing its bankable feasibility study, and will soon start looking for a strategic partner to join them.

He noted that the strategic partner will support the firm with the technical know-how, and as well as in the marketing of the output. The focus is to attract the right partner.

Gulf Mining’s goal is to commercialise potentially prodigious potassium chloride deposits located at shallow depths in the remote Um al Samim desert in the far west of the sultanate. Plans drawn up by Gulf of Potassium Mining, a subsidiary of Gulf Mining Group, envisage the development of a processing plant at site, added the report.