Saudi Arabia’s plunge into the world of mining has caught the industry’s attention as the nation prepares to deploy vast amounts of capital to diversify away from oil and gas.

The kingdom wants to secure access to critical minerals such as copper, nickel, lithium and iron ore, used in equipment from electric vehicle batteries to solar panels. Those will be processed by new refineries and smelters to feed a wider industrial network across the country.

While China has a lock on much of the clean-energy supply chain that currently exists, the emergence of Saudi Arabia will make it even harder for the US, Europe and Japan to secure the battery minerals they want.

Saudia Arabia crashed into the world mining scene in the middle of last year with a $2.6 billion deal to buy 10% of Vale SA’s base metal unit, beating off competition from Qatar and Japan in the process.

It’s looking to buy more stakes in foreign mining operations through Manara Minerals Investment Co., a vehicle established by the kingdom’s powerful sovereign wealth fund and Saudi Arabian Mining Co. In doing so, it wants to secure metal offtake in return.

The model is very similar to the one long deployed by Japan’s commodity trading houses such as Mitsui & Co. Ltd. and Mitsubishi Corp., only Manara is state-backed and able to deploy capital with long-term strategic goals in mind.

That poses a challenge for countries such as the US, which is rushing to catch up. There have been suggestions the nation could piggyback off Saudi ambitions to secure its own supplies — essentially subcontracting out the heavy lifting.

But Saudi Arabia’s focus is to develop its own industry, and it’s becoming clearer that it will work with any country that helps achieve those goals.

The kingdom’s growing importance in the world of critical minerals was noticeable last week at its flagship mining conference in Riyadh.

Previously not on the circuit for most of the industry’s biggest players, the event drew in executives from nearly every top miner, along with about 16,000 other delegates and a large group of US government representatives.

The crowded conference center was at times too busy to cross, with snaking queues for everything from badge collection to the restrooms. One mining executive quipped that he now knew what a gold rush looked like.