Robust attendance at a mining conference held in the Saudi capital this week wasn’t solely about sealing financial deals, with foreign governments also eager to cement broader diplomatic relationships with the kingdom.

Riyadh has worked to cast itself as a neutral party able to do business with all sides. Saudi leaders have reset relations with Washington, long the kingdom’s protector in the Persian Gulf, and developed closer ties with Russia and China in recent years.

“We are in the middle of the world,” said Khalid al-Mudaifer, Saudi Arabia’s vice minister for mining. “Saudi Arabia is location-wise between three continents…we think we connect the whole world all together.”

The kingdom expects some 75 billion riyals, equivalent to about $20 billion, worth of deals to have been struck during the three-day conference. The U.S. and Russia both signed memorandums of understanding with Saudi Arabia related to minerals.

Saudi Arabia’s unlikely push to become a significant player in the global mining industry is part of a broader agenda to diversify the kingdom’s economy. Launched eight years ago by de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Vision 2030 strategy aims to build new industries unrelated to oil in large part by improving the country’s business climate.

Saudi officials see mining as the third pillar of the kingdom’s economy after hydrocarbons and petrochemicals. 

The first Future Minerals Forum, held in 2021, attracted around 4,700 participants. This year, some 16,000 people showed up. “This is the mecca of mining,” said one first-time attendee.

At last year’s conference, Saudi Arabia launched Manara Minerals, a joint venture between its sovereign-wealth fund and state-owned mining company, to buy mining assets abroad. 

Manara grabbed the mining industry’s attention last July with its first deal: a plan to acquire a 10% stake in Brazilian miner Vale’s base-metals unit that valued the business at $26 billion. The deal was viewed as evidence that the Saudis were willing to sink money into the sector.

Manara plans to buy more than $15 billion in mining assets globally in the next few years, The Wall Street Journal has reported. 

Saudi Arabia has been in talks to plow money into Reko Diq, a project in Pakistan that will be one of the world’s biggest new copper mines, and has other deals in the pipeline, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Riyadh is also seeking to draw foreign investment to its domestic mining industry.

Saudi Arabia said at the conference it has revised its estimates for its untapped mineral wealth to $2.5 trillion, up from $1.3 trillion in 2016, a figure that includes deposits of copper, gold, zinc, phosphates and rare-earth metals. Most of its land still needs to be explored, meaning the figure could rise.

Since last year’s conference, applications for mining permits from international companies have doubled, Mudaifer said. Saudi officials have visited companies and investors around the world to encourage them to invest.

The U.S. government presence at the conference this year was seen as a sign of the countries’ improving relations. Amos Hochstein, a top White House adviser, spoke, as did Geoffrey Pyatt, the State Department’s assistant secretary of energy resources.

The U.S. has been working with other countries to curb China’s dominance across critical mineral supply chains. 

“This is not about geopolitical adversaries,” Mr. Hochstein said Wednesday. “You can’t have an energy transition” based on a supply from one country, he said. “We have to invest together with our allies and our friends to make sure that the global system is well-supplied and well-diversified.”

The memorandum of understanding the U.S. Export-Import Bank signed with its Saudi counterpart calls for the financing of U.S. exports to Saudi Arabia, as well as collaboration in critical minerals projects, among other things. 

The Saudi agreement with Russia said the countries would cooperate in geology and mineral resources.

“We’d love to work with other nations to develop those [natural] resources, to share our expertise and our technology,” said Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund.

Saudi Arabia’s push for business with China is part of a larger geopolitical pivot by the kingdom and other Gulf states to build relations with Beijing and, in the process, become less dependent on the U.S. and enhance their own influence.

Steele Li, vice chairman and chief investment officer of Chinese miner CMOC Group, said the idea of the super region is appealing because of its abundant resources and strategic location. Investing there is a long-term play that fits into the miner’s strategy, he said.