Industry

A TAKRAF Mobile Stacking Bridge forms part of an integrated dry tailings solution that combines bulk material handling, water recovery and sustainable tailings management. (Image source: TAKRAF)

With a growing regional presence and integrated solutions spanning mining, minerals processing and bulk material handling, TAKRAF Group is helping advance efficient, sustainable industrial value chains across the Middle East

Across the Middle East, mining is emerging as a key pillar of economic diversification and industrial development. In Saudi Arabia particularly, Vision 2030 is accelerating investment across the mining and minerals processing value chain. The Kingdom’s ambition extends beyond identifying and extracting mineral resources to developing integrated processing and downstream capabilities within Saudi Arabia.

The focus is increasingly shifting toward the development of integrated, efficient and sustainable value chains that support long-term industrial growth. As projects become larger and more complex, operators are seeking partners capable of delivering technologies and expertise across the entire mining lifecycle while helping address challenges such as water scarcity, energy efficiency, environmental performance and overall project economics. These priorities are especially relevant in a region where responsible resource development must go hand in hand with operational excellence.

To support this transformation, TAKRAF Group has strengthened its commitment to the Middle East through the establishment of TAKRAF Saudi Arabia and a regional office in Riyadh. This local presence enables closer collaboration with customers while combining regional market understanding with technologies and engineering expertise proven in some of the world's most demanding mining operations. The Riyadh office provides a regional base for customer engagement, project development and technical support across Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East.

A key differentiator for TAKRAF Group is its ability to address the complete mining and minerals processing value chain rather than providing individual pieces of equipment. Through the combined strengths of TAKRAF and DELKOR, customers can access solutions spanning crushing, conveying and high-capacity bulk material handling through to flotation, thickening, filtration, water recovery and dry stack tailings management. This integrated approach can improve recovery and plant availability, increase water reuse, support reliable high-volume material handling and reduce execution risk while optimizing long-term operating and maintenance costs.

The growing emphasis on water recovery and responsible tailings management is particularly significant across the Middle East. As mining developments advance in increasingly water-constrained environments, technologies that maximize water reuse while supporting safe and sustainable operations are becoming essential. At the same time, demand continues to grow for efficient bulk material handling systems capable of supporting large-scale mining, processing and export operations.

Beyond mining, many of the engineering challenges associated with moving, storing and processing bulk materials are equally relevant to other industrial sectors. TAKRAF's experience in applications such as petroleum coke handling, sulfur storage and export systems, petrochemical material handling and oil sands crushing demonstrates how technologies originally developed for mining can support broader industrial value chains. These capabilities provide opportunities to contribute to the wider industrial and energy ecosystem that is evolving across the Middle East.

As investment across mining, processing and industrial infrastructure continues to accelerate, TAKRAF Group remains committed to supporting customers with high-capacity bulk material handling systems, integrated minerals processing solutions, water recovery and tailings technologies and proven project execution expertise. The broader Tenova group extends these capabilities into hydrometallurgy, downstream metals technologies and decarbonization, enabling engagement across a wider portion of the industrial value chain while supporting the region's long-term economic ambitions.

For more information on TAKRAF Group visit www.takraf.com or be in touch at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

For Mining with Meaning.

Amin. H. Nasser, president and CEO of Aramco. (Image source: Aramco)

At the Energy Intelligence Forum in London, where energy security and energy resilience was at the top of the agenda, Aramco’s CEO Amin H. Nasser underlined the critical importance of Middle East oil and gas supplies, the need for deeper resilience, and why energy resilience and energy security should be a shared responsibility between producers and consumers

The disruption to flows through the Strait of Hormuz has exposed how deeply energy security, economic security, and geopolitical events are connected, Nasser commented.

He noted that at the beginning of the crisis there were almost 10bn barrels of global oil stocks, since when nearly 3bn barrels of gross oil supply has been lost – around half the crude and products that would normally have moved through the Strait of Hormuz over the same period.

“Existing buffers have cushioned the blow and bought time, but they are finite. And while the squeeze on crude is serious, refined fuel prices have risen even more sharply.

“Emergency reserves might buy us a winter. They cannot fix long-term supply.

“Until Hormuz fully re-opens and confidence returns, the crude reality is that pressure at both ends of the barrel will intensify.”

Replenishing inventories while meeting demand could take up to two years, he added. The supply resilience cushion is “scarily thin.”

“The world has been reminded that no energy source, route, or system is risk-free. This crisis has raised the risk baseline. And that higher risk must be matched by deeper resilience, built across multiple layers.”

Deeper resilience

This is exemplified in Aramco’s resilience approach, which includes separating critical facilities; building in backup equipment; planning for maintenance; emergency command and firefighting excellence; rapid damage assessment; restoring damaged infrastructure at pace and investing in its people.

Reducing dependence on chokepoints is also important. Aramco is studying additional routes for crude exports, while exploring more overseas storage to help cover short-term disruptions.

Emphasising the critical importance of Middle East oil and gas supplies, Nasser highlighted the need to re-assess oil policies to ensure they remain aligned with the strategic goal of long-term energy security.

“Because energy security and resilience is a shared responsibility between producers and consumers,” he stressed. “This crisis is much more than an energy supply shock in Hormuz,” he added, citing the attacks on facilities and shipping.

“The international community must stand together to safeguard the free flow of energy and goods.”

Oil and gas infrastructure is a “collective necessity for producers and consumers alike,” he said, urging collaboration to minimise and adapt to shocks.

“We can collaborate on emergency response; better supply planning; refinery and petrochemicals flexibility; joint stockpiling; and long-term relationships. And stronger finances, supply chains, and cybersecurity are a must. “

Nasser concluded with a plea to “end the era of cyclical under-investment”, highlighting the integral importance of resilience.

“This crisis has finally exposed the false choice between energy security, affordability and sustainability.

“They are inseparable, and the future energy system must be built on all three. Middle East oil and gas remain central to that system for decades to come. Strengthening the resilience of these vital supplies is therefore a global strategic necessity."

Kuwait is developing its offshore discoveries. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) is pushing ahead with its strategic expansion plans undeterred despite the crisis in the Middle East, its deputy chairman and CEO Shaikh Nawaf S.Al-Sabah assured delegates at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London

"We have not stopped, slowed down or even thought again about any of our strategic plans," Shaikh Al-Sabah said, confirming that KPC remains on track to deliver its target of increasing production capacity to 4mn bpd by 2035, and to increase domestic gas production to 2mn scf/d by 2040.

“We’re investing US$9-10bn a year in capex to reach those two targets; we’ll continue to make these investments and grow internationally throughout this process,” he said. “We are doing this because we recognise that it is our hydrocarbons that will be most in demand a decade from now, and two decades from now, in fact for the rest of our lifetimes.”

He added that the two major projects announced just before the beginning of hostilities are also going ahead as planned. Project Peregrine, which involves the lease and leaseback of existing pipelines in Kuwait, will finance future growth. Investors remain fully committed to the project, he said, and definitive agreements were signed in July.

“We were able to execute on time, on target with valuations that were higher than we expected before the war started, and at a cost less that any preceding transaction in the region of a similar scope, so we ended up with US$7.85bn in new foreign investment in the pipeline network.” This was because investors from around the world recognised the resilience in Kuwait and took a long-term view, he said.

The other project announced is Project Seef, which will develop three massive offshore discoveries made over the past two years, together containing over 3bn bbl of oil in recoverable reserves. Noting that all Kuwait’s production to date has been onshore, he pointed out that this achievement in getting a 100% exploration success, given that three wells drilled had resulted in three major discoveries. Subsequent wells have been drilled with further discoveries made, which have not yet been officially announced.

“We are asking international oil companies to partner with us to develop those resources under an operating services contract. So we’re moving ahead according to the exact same schedule that we had put together even before the war began.

“It is that type of resilience that really reflects how Kuwait and KPC are looking at this crisis and planning for the future,” he said.

Proving resilient

Discussing the company’s resilience, Shaikh Al-Sabah drew parallels with the destruction of Kuwait’s oilfields at the time of the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1991, when it had been able to bring production back relatively quickly because of the resilience of its people and its reservoirs, as well as the strength of its international partnerships. Kuwait and its GCC neighbours had demonstrated resilience in the face of the current attacks by planning in advance for such a scenario.

However, he said that while storage buffers and alternative pipeline routes that had been put in place had contributed to this resilience, these buffers are evaporating and “none of these is a replacement for free navigation to the Strait of Hormuz …ultimately the resilience of the international system can only hold up for so long.”

Kuwait had responded to the crisis by slowly reducing production from 2.6mn bpd to a level sufficient to serve Kuwait’s domestic demands, when it was unable to export, and then when it had been able to restart exports by using its own internal tanker fleet, building production back up again to current level of around 2mn bpd.

“We have the capacity to go back up to our current maximum sustainable capacity of 3mn bpd, if we have the export routes available, and this comes down to the ability to move oil through the Strait,” Al-Sabah said. “We have been doing that by using our strategic tanker fleet.” He acknowledged the contribution of Kuwait’s customers, who had brought their own tankers in to support Kuwait’s operations.

Al Sabah noted that while there is an abundance of crude, there is a shortage of product, as there is no way to transport it from refineries, except through shipping, which is heavily restricted. Distillate prices are sky high, as are refinery margins. What is needed in the future is to move product out of the Gulf to get refineries to full production. Kuwait is cooperating with its neighbours on transport options. KPC is also leveraging its investments in refineries outside Kuwait and shipping as much crude as it can to those refineries, growing associated storage to make them even more resilient against any future. It is also building out its storage capacity in Kuwait itself.

“We have to be completely self-reliant,” Shaikh Al-Sabah said.

Echoing the remarks of Aramco CEO Amin H Nasser earlier, he urged an international response to the crisis, bringing producers and consumers together. “This isn’t a crisis that can be borne only by the producers, that we have to build more pipelines. The response has to be inclusive of consuming countries as well.”

Saudi Arabia's exports are now at their highest level since February. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Crude oil exports from key Middle East producers, notably Saudi Arabia, have rebounded in September to 12.8mn bpd, the highest level since the start of the hostilities in February, according to a Reuters report, drawing on tracking data from Kpler

However, exports from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Iran are still around 6 mn bpd below the 18.8mn bpd recorded in February, and with President Trump having rejected Iran's latest offer to reopen the Strait, it does not look as if a full reopening of the waterway is on the cards any time soon.

Saudi Arabia is on course to ship around 5.4mn bpd in September, rebounding from 2.446mn bpd in August, the data indicates, the highest level since the start of the war and approaching its 2025 average.

Having closed its East-West pipeline as a precautionary measure following attacks from the Houthis on its energy infrastructure, the Kingdom had rerouted some of its oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, using a shipping lane opened by the US military along the Oman coast. 19 very large crude carriers carrying Saudi oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz last week, according to Kpler data. Saudi Arabia is now reported to have restarted exports through the East-West pipeline, which runs from the Abqaiq oilfield in Eastern province to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea and has a capacity of 7mn bpd. Oil loadings from Yanbu are reported to have resumed. Aramco had been able to keep the oil flowing by directing around 70% of its exports through the pipeline, enabling it to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

Aramco stresses resilience

At the announcement of the company’s second quarter results in August, Aramco’s CEO Amin H Nasser made a point of stressing the company’s resilience and the agility of its business and operations to withstand and respond to rapidly changing market conditions.

“Despite the unprecedented disruption through the Strait of Hormuz, we continued to demonstrate our ability to maintain business continuity by capitalising on our diverse asset base and multi-decade planning, including strategic infrastructure such as the East-West pipeline, storage capacity and export terminals,” he said at the time. This has enabled Aramco to sustain production and exports while advancing key projects, he added.

The CEO reiterated this message in an interview with Nokkei Asia recently, when he noted that Aramco continues to explore additional export routes and expand its storage capacity outside the Kingdom to maintain supplies to global markets. He said operations affected by disruptions can be restored within days, noting that Aramco has multiple options for meeting customer demand and that it possesses the infrastructure and operational capabilities necessary to continue operating under challenging circumstances.