Why Saudi Arabia’s Super Region is the Most Viable Global Hub Beyond China for Critical Mineral Supply Chain Convergence

Abstract

The accelerating global energy transition, coupled with mounting geopolitical instability, has exposed a dangerous over-concentration of critical mineral supply chains—especially in refining and midstream processing—in China. As countries seek to decarbonize economies and secure inputs for clean technologies, electric vehicles, and digital infrastructure, the urgency to diversify these supply chains has become paramount. Amid this global scramble for alternatives, Saudi Arabia has emerged not only as a credible candidate but as the most systemically capable and geopolitically neutral platform to lead the next era of global critical mineral convergence.

Rooted in its Vision 2030 strategy, the Kingdom’s “Super Region” concept offers more than a new geographic focal point—it embodies a paradigm shift in how critical minerals are sourced, transported, refined, and distributed. By strategically positioning itself at the intersection of five major transcontinental corridors—Middle Corridor, INSTC, IMEC, Red Sea–Africa, and Pakistan–Uzbekistan—and by activating industrial clusters like Ras Al-Khair and Oxagon with green energy and AI-driven logistics, Saudi Arabia is building an unparalleled mineral value chain ecosystem.

Moreover, the Kingdom’s institutional arsenal—including the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Ma’aden, Manara Minerals, and the Future Minerals Forum (FMF)—enables not just investment but coordinated governance, traceability, and execution.  Witt new studies to be implementedSaudi Arabia is poised to unlock mineral corridors in Central Asia, Africa, and South Asia and converge them into a unified, ESG-compliant, traceable platform.

This paper demonstrates that the Saudi Super Region is not merely an alternative to China—it is a structurally differentiated, technologically advanced, and globally inclusive solution for a fractured and carbon-constrained global economy. It offers investors, governments, and industries a credible pathway to build resilient, transparent, and future-proof supply chains that are critical to sustaining global economic growth and achieving climate transition goals.

1. Introduction:

A World in Transition

The post-pandemic global economy is undergoing a profound structural realignment. At the heart of this transformation is the race to secure reliable, ethical, and decarbonized supply chains for critical raw materials (CRMs)—the building blocks of the energy transition, digital infrastructure, aerospace, defense, and advanced manufacturing.

Yet as this demand accelerates, the concentration of supply—and more critically, of processing—remains heavily skewed. Over 90% of global rare earth element (REE) refining, 75% of cobalt sulfate production, and more than 80% of lithium hydroxide output is processed in China. This dominance has created a systemic risk for all importing economies, from the EU to the U.S., Japan, and India, which now face growing regulatory, security, and ESG scrutiny over their sourcing dependencies.

What’s more, traditional supply routes—maritime chokepoints through the South China Sea, politically unstable jurisdictions, and infrastructure-deficient regions—have proven vulnerable to both geopolitical tensions and climate-induced disruptions. As a result, countries are not only diversifying where minerals come from but also how they are moved, refined, and audited.

The challenge is not merely one of duplication, but of innovation. The world does not need a “new China.” It needs a fundamentally different model—one that integrates multi-corridor logistics, digitized traceability, ESG governance, industrial flexibility, and geopolitical neutrality.

In this context, Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and its associated “Super Region” strategy represent a timely and robust response. Emerging not from historical colonial infrastructure or unilateral trading blocs, but from a future-oriented, investment-driven blueprint, the Super Region is designed to bridge East and West, Africa and Asia, upstream and downstream—under a single institutional and infrastructural architecture.

This introduction sets the stage for understanding why Saudi Arabia is not only well-positioned to diversify the world’s CRM ecosystem, but to lead it into a new era of resilient, transparent, and geopolitically stabilized mineral supply systems.

2. Strategic Location: The Epicenter of Corridor Convergence

Saudi Arabia’s geography offers far more than symbolic centrality. It is, by design and connectivity, the literal and logistical crossroads of Eurasian and Afro-Asian supply chains. With coastlines on both the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf, and direct land access to Jordan, the GCC, and through strategic partnerships to Central Asia and Africa, Saudi Arabia is capable of interfacing with five major geoeconomic corridors that define the future of critical mineral flow:

• Middle Corridor (Trans-Caspian International Transport Route): This East-West axis connects mineral-rich Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan—to Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye via road, rail, and ferry systems. Saudi Arabia is developing direct intermodal logistics through Turkish and Azerbaijani partnerships, positioning itself as the terminus for REE, copper, and lithium flows from this corridor.
• International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC): Stretching from Russia through Iran to the UAE and the Gulf, this corridor bypasses Western sanctions chokepoints and provides a route for Russian and Iranian metals—including nickel, copper, uranium—to reach Ras Al-Khair or NEOM via UAE or direct maritime transshipment.
• India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC): Saudi Arabia lies at the heart of this recently formalized corridor, connecting Indian manufacturing and mineral flows to Jordan, Israel, and European ports. IMEC is also a downstream vector for battery component exports and green hydrogen-enabled supply chains, where Saudi Arabia aims to anchor value-added production.
• Red Sea–Africa Corridor: By integrating the Port of Jeddah and future rail extensions toward the Horn of Africa and East Africa (Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya), Saudi Arabia can channel high-grade cobalt, niobium, graphite, and rare earths from the African mineral belt directly to domestic refineries.
• Pakistan–Afghanistan–Uzbekistan Link: The emerging east-west corridor from Gwadar through Kandahar to Uzbekistan offers potential for Saudi-financed and SCMIF-supported mineral logistics in South and Central Asia. Its eventual connection to Saudi infrastructure (via Iran or the Gulf) will bring additional lithium and copper into the Super Region value chain.

From a geotechnical perspective, Saudi Arabia’s strategic location allows for multimodal (rail, maritime, road, pipeline) integration at an unmatched scale. The completion of the Saudi “Landbridge” (linking Jeddah to Dammam via Riyadh) and rail connectivity to the GCC network ensures that the Kingdom can consolidate mineral cargoes from every direction and distribute them to processing hubs at Ras Al-Khair and Oxagon.

The Kingdom’s neutrality enhances this advantage. Unlike other corridor participants that are constrained by geopolitical alignment or sanctions exposure, Saudi Arabia can operate as a non-aligned facilitator—hosting, processing, and redistributing minerals from East and West without political entanglement.

In strategic terms, this makes Saudi Arabia not only a junction, but a convergence platform—where upstream assets, downstream industrial processing, green energy capacity, and ESG traceability come together across multiple corridors. No other geography in the world possesses this degree of structural, logistical, and institutional centrality.

3. Industrial Platform: Real Infrastructure, Not Rhetoric

Saudi Arabia’s advantage in the critical minerals race is not based on potential—it is anchored in operational assets, fast-tracked infrastructure, and technically advanced industrial planning. At the heart of the Super Region model are two flagship processing and manufacturing hubs: Ras Al-Khair Industrial City and NEOM’s Oxagon.

• Ras Al-Khair: Located on the Arabian Gulf, this mega-industrial complex already hosts fully operational aluminum smelters, phosphate fertilizer plants, and an integrated supply chain that handles raw bauxite, ammonia, and sulfur inputs. Recent expansions include the design and tendering of copper smelting and rare earth separation plants—intended to process upstream concentrates from Central Asia and Africa. The city is powered by both fossil and renewable inputs and features a direct link to Saudi Arabia’s port and rail networks, enabling bulk inbound and outbound logistics. Ras Al-Khair is also home to the planned Saudi green steel and battery cathode value chains.
• Oxagon (NEOM): Envisioned as a future-facing, fully digitized, zero-emissions industrial city, Oxagon is a globally unique platform. It incorporates AI-controlled logistics terminals, robotic port handling, and full renewable energy supply—expected to power green hydrogen electrolyzers, battery material production, and EV component manufacturing. Technically, Oxagon is designed to co-locate advanced materials labs with modular gigafactories, enabling real-time iteration and design-to-production integration across mineral input chains. Oxagon’s digital twin infrastructure enables automated inventory management, blockchain-based supply verification, and integration with customs, export financing, and ESG audits.
• Midstream Integration: Both Ras Al-Khair and Oxagon will anchor Saudi Arabia’s midstream transformation—refining lithium hydroxide, nickel sulfate, cobalt intermediate products, and REE oxides. The emphasis is on semi-finished, ESG-compliant, traceable mineral outputs that can feed European, U.S., and Asian battery, magnet, and clean energy manufacturers. Pilot projects in lithium extraction from brine (Aramco, Ma’aden) and secondary recovery from phosphate tailings demonstrate a parallel investment in mineral innovation.
• Rail-Linked Industrial Zones: Through the Saudi Rail Authority’s cross-kingdom freight lines and upcoming Gulf–NEOM connections, industrial zones are being established with rail-adjacent processing platforms. These include dry port-enabled SEZs near Jeddah and Medina, bonded warehouses with automated inspection, and logistics corridors that link Saudi processing directly to corridor mineral origins and maritime exits.

Technically, what sets Saudi’s platform apart is its vertical modularity: the ability to plug in upstream feedstock and downstream demand nodes dynamically, depending on market shifts, regulatory changes, or geopolitical events. In contrast to legacy industrial zones that were built around static supply assumptions, Saudi Arabia’s Super Region is designed for adaptive supply chain orchestration. This industrial readiness is not theoretical. In the past 24 months, Saudi Arabia has commissioned or announced over $25 billion in industrial investments related to mining, minerals, and processing—with deals covering everything from rolling stock and precision casting to battery precursor R&D and cathode gigafactories. Such a concentrated and diversified portfolio is unmatched outside China.

In sum, Saudi Arabia’s industrial platform does not merely support the Super Region—it defines it. Ras Al-Khair and Oxagon offer the Kingdom the capacity to act as a full-cycle host: from mineral input, through ESG-certified refining, to globally compliant export of value-added products. This industrial foundation is what gives credibility to the Super Region’s ambition to be a trusted, neutral, and high-performance alternative to China in global critical mineral supply.

4. Institutional Firepower: Capital and Execution Capacity

Saudi Arabia’s institutional ecosystem is unique among emerging and developed economies alike: it combines sovereign capital, integrated industrial mandates, global investment reach, and executional discipline under a unified national vision. These attributes enable the Super Region to move beyond policy declarations to tangible delivery mechanisms that link capital to infrastructure, regulation to technology, and upstream exploration to downstream industrial output.

• Public Investment Fund (PIF): With assets under management exceeding $925 billion (as of 2025), PIF is more than a sovereign wealth fund—it is a sovereign execution arm. PIF’s mandates include direct investment into upstream mining assets, equity stakes in global refining and processing firms, and co-development of industrial infrastructure across logistics, ports, and manufacturing. PIF has allocated at least $30 billion to the global mining and minerals value chain, including landmark investments such as its 10% stake in Vale Base Metals (Brazil), exploration joint ventures in Africa, and equity participation in new refining complexes in Ras Al-Khair and NEOM.
• Ma’aden and Manara Minerals: As Saudi Arabia’s national mining champion, Ma’aden integrates exploration, processing, and export within a single operational structure. Through its 51% ownership of Manara Minerals (a joint venture with PIF), Ma’aden is expanding into global upstream projects while simultaneously building domestic capacity to process copper, lithium, and rare earths. Ma’aden’s Q1 2025 revenues exceeded SAR 8.5 billion, and its multibillion-dollar capital expenditure plan is focused on battery materials, green aluminum, and phosphate-based agricultural supply chains.
• Future Minerals Forum (FMF): In just four years, FMF has become a premier global convening body for the critical minerals sector, akin to the Davos of mineral diplomacy. What differentiates FMF is that it is not a think tank or talk shop: it is a high-level matchmaking platform with deal facilitation, MoU announcements, and policy coordination at its core. The 2025 FMF convened over 18,000 stakeholders and confirmed over $28 billion in MoUs, many involving corridor countries such as Uzbekistan, Türkiye, and Azerbaijan. FMF also serves as the diplomatic enabler for traceability harmonization, ESG standardization, and corridor coordination.
• Saudi Arabian Railways (SAR) and the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources (MIMR): These institutions are directly tasked with integrating mineral infrastructure into national development. SAR is executing over $10 billion in cross-Kingdom freight infrastructure and logistics corridors, while MIMR leads regulatory modernization, local content strategies, and international cooperation frameworks. The recent rollout of Saudi Arabia’s new mining investment law—streamlined, investment-friendly, and ESG-anchored—underscores the state’s institutional adaptability.

Technically, what gives Saudi Arabia’s institutional framework its edge is its cross-alignment: each entity—PIF, Ma’aden, FMF, MIMR, SAR—operates under a unified Vision 2030 mandate, eliminating fragmentation and maximizing delivery speed. Where other nations struggle to synchronize ministries, agencies, and private actors, Saudi Arabia leverages centralized authority to enable seamless execution. As the Super Region continues to gain traction, this institutional synergy will be critical to turning strategy into systems—ensuring that corridor-level infrastructure, ESG norms, financing mechanisms, and trade platforms are not just proposed, but implemented.

5. ESG, Traceability, and Green Differentiation

In the era of decarbonization and ethical sourcing, compliance with global ESG standards is no longer optional—it is a prerequisite for market access, financing, and strategic alliances. Saudi Arabia’s Super Region is designed from the outset to meet and exceed international ESG expectations, offering stakeholders not only physical supply chain security, but regulatory and reputational assurance.

• Regulatory Alignment: The Saudi regulatory framework has rapidly converged with global ESG norms. The Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources (MIMR) now requires all mining license applicants to conduct and publish Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA) in line with World Bank and IRMA (Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance) protocols. The Saudi Green Initiative (SGI) underpins national commitments to Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions reduction, water conservation, and biodiversity protection—directly feeding into the design of the Super Region’s mining and industrial nodes.
• Digital Traceability Systems: Saudi Arabia is leading in the deployment of Digital Product Passports (DPPs), incorporating IoT sensors, blockchain ledgers, and QR-enabled tracking systems. These technologies allow cradle-to-gate visibility over each mineral shipment, capturing data on mine origin, processing conditions, ESG metrics, and Scope 3 emissions. In practical terms, this means European automakers, U.S. battery makers, and Japanese magnet producers can trace the carbon and ethical footprint of a Saudi-processed product in real time—enabling CBAM compliance and unlocking ESG-linked financing.
• Integration with EU Taxonomy and CBAM: All Super Region mineral flows are being designed to comply with the EU’s Sustainable Finance Taxonomy and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). This includes pre-calculated embedded carbon metrics, digital certification of emissions, and third-party audits aligned with both EU and IFC guidelines. Early-stage projects in Ras Al-Khair and NEOM are embedding carbon accounting and digital reporting mechanisms that align with downstream buyer requirements.
• Green Infrastructure and Clean Power Inputs: The Super Region’s industrial nodes—especially Ras Al-Khair and Oxagon—are powered increasingly by renewable energy sources including solar, wind, and green hydrogen. This allows Saudi Arabia to produce what are emerging as premium commodities in global markets: “green copper,” “green lithium,” and “zero-carbon aluminum.” These materials are not only environmentally preferred, but often command price premiums and enjoy preferential offtake in ESG-focused jurisdictions.
• Circular Economy and Waste Valorization: Saudi Arabia is incorporating circular economy principles into Super Region infrastructure. Pilot programs are underway for recovering critical minerals from tailings and industrial byproducts (e.g., lithium from phosphate production, cobalt from slag). These efforts reduce environmental impact, extend resource life, and align with global circularity objectives outlined by the EU and UNEP.

7. Policy Recommendations

To fully operationalize the Super Region and transform it into a global cornerstone of critical minerals supply chain resilience, Saudi Arabia and its strategic partners must prioritize a set of integrated, realistic, and immediately actionable policy steps. These recommendations are grouped across four pillars: Infrastructure, Finance, ESG Governance, and Institutional Integration.

Saudi Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund (SCMIF)

This article introduces the Saudi Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund (SCMIF) as a prospective institutional mechanism to finance corridor-linked mining, transport, and processing infrastructure aligned with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. It is important to clarify the origin and intent of the model:

The SCMIF corridor-focused investment and policy platform working across Central Asia, Türkiye, and the GCC. The concept is not currently an official financial instrument or policy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The SCMIF framework draws strategic inspiration from global precedents such as Canada’s CMIF and Australia’s Critical Minerals Facility, yet it is specifically tailored to Saudi Arabia’s institutional strengths (PIF, Ma’aden, FMF), corridor convergence position, and ESG-aligned development ambitions. The fund is envisioned as an enabling tool for scalable, traceable, and investment-grade mineral infrastructure.

Core design features include:

• A blended finance structure (grants, equity, and concessional debt)
• Corridor-based prioritization for infrastructure with upstream–midstream mineral integration.
• ESG-linked disbursement criteria, harmonized with CBAM, OECD, and AIIB/EBRD standards
• Capacity to work through multilateral syndication and public–private partnerships

Tethys Gateway recommends this concept as part of a broader effort to operationalize the Super Region vision with global best practices in corridor governance, traceability, and industrial coordination. It is submitted as an implementation-ready blueprint for stakeholder collaboration across government, finance, and industry.

1. Infrastructure and Corridor Synchronization

1. Accelerate East–West Landbridge Completion: Finalize the Saudi Landbridge rail line connecting Jeddah to Dammam via Riyadh, and integrate it with Ras Al-Khair, NEOM, and Jubail freight corridors. This line will serve as the physical spine of the Super Region.
2. Upgrade Key Intermodal Ports: Expand container and mineral terminal capacity in Jeddah, Dammam, and Oxagon. Incorporate smart customs clearance technologies and AI-assisted cargo management to facilitate high-throughput, multi-corridor mineral transit.
3. Deploy Corridor-SEZ Convergence Zones: Establish logistics–industrial convergence parks in Türkiye, Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Djibouti, jointly managed by SCMIF and local authorities. These hubs should include bonded processing, ESG auditing offices, and digital customs integration.
4. Backhaul Optimization: Leverage outbound infrastructure for inbound logistics—using rail lines developed for mineral exports to also support backhaul industrial inputs (e.g. reagents, clean technology, AI equipment).

1. Blended Finance and Institutional Investment Instruments

1. Launch the Saudi Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund (SCMIF): Structure it with multi-window instruments:
   • Grant window for early-stage feasibility studies and ESG assessments
   • Equity window for upstream and midstream SPVs
   • Concessional loan window for corridor infrastructure (e.g. ferries, rail spurs, power transmission)
   • Anchor LP positions for international co-investors (e.g. EBRD, AIIB, Canada’s CMIF)
2. Issue Corridor-Linked ESG Green Bonds: Backed by SCMIF or NEOM, these sovereign-anchored green bonds would finance corridor-linked refinery and rail infrastructure with guaranteed ESG traceability.
3. Unlock Export Credit Facilities: Through collaboration with international ECAs (e.g. Euler Hermes, SACE, EXIM), provide structured guarantees for Saudi-refined critical minerals exported to the EU, U.S., and East Asia.

1. ESG, Traceability and Circular Economy Governance

1. Deploy a Supranational ESG Traceability Platform: Host a corridor-wide platform in partnership with FMF, GCC, and Central Asian countries to standardize digital product passports, carbon disclosures, and ethical sourcing metrics.
2. Institutionalize Circular Economy Clusters: Incentivize mineral recovery and reuse zones at Ras Al-Khair and Oxagon with tax exemptions, R&D grants, and regulatory fast-tracking. Focus on recovery of lithium from brines, rare earths from industrial waste, and cobalt from tailings.
3. Mandate ESG-Linked Offtake Agreements: Tie all long-term offtake contracts (from Saudi refiners to OEMs) to ESG performance guarantees—ensuring market access and price premiums.

1. Multilateral Governance and Corridor Diplomacy

1. Establish a Corridor Coordination Secretariat (CCS): Based in Riyadh or NEOM, this platform would synchronize transport, ESG, customs, and investment standards across TITR, INSTC, IMEC, and Red Sea corridors.
2. Formalize Intergovernmental Corridor Compacts: Launch corridor-specific bilateral and multilateral MoUs with countries like Kazakhstan, Türkiye, Ethiopia, and India—centered on logistics interconnectivity, ESG harmonization, and mutual market access.
3. Build Strategic Communication Hubs: Position FMF as the convening body for corridor diplomacy and investment signaling, with regular ministerial tracks, ESG panel tracks, and annual corridor assessments.

By focusing on this multidimensional roadmap, Saudi Arabia will not only position itself as a processing and logistical hub—but as the system integrator of the world’s most ambitious corridor-linked, ESG-aligned, and industrially executed mineral supply chain architecture.

8. The Post-China Mineral World Is Multi-Polar

The global economy is now decisively entering a new phase: one defined not by unipolar supply dominance, but by distributed, ESG-aligned, and corridor-enabled mineral ecosystems. The era of sole reliance on a single refining geography—however cost-efficient—is over. The risks are too high, and the industrial, environmental, and geopolitical stakes too great.

What emerges in its place is a multi-polar mineral architecture, built on redundancy, transparency, and sovereign partnership. In this transition, Saudi Arabia’s Super Region is not a follower—it is the architect of this emerging system.

The Kingdom offers a unique fusion of capabilities:

• Industrial cities with advanced refining and green energy platforms (Ras Al-Khair, Oxagon)
• Interconnected corridors spanning Central Asia, South Asia, Africa, and Europe
• Institutional execution via PIF, Ma’aden, FMF, and future-facing platforms like SCMIF
• ESG and traceability systems that are not aspirational, but already operational

Unlike some countries and  international organizations   that offer partial solutions—access to capital but not infrastructure, or ESG ambitions without logistics—Saudi Arabia delivers a fully integrated architecture, engineered to connect upstream deposits to downstream demand, across secure, certified, and politically neutral pathways.

This vision is not merely theoretical. It is actively unfolding:

• Strategic offtakes from Africa and Central Asia are being negotiated
• SCMIF’s term sheet is under development with multilateral partners
• FMF has evolved into the world’s leading platform for critical mineral diplomacy
• Pilot traceability systems are already functioning for selected copper and phosphate streams

In short, the Super Region is no longer a proposal. It is a project—and soon, it will be a system.

In a world fragmented by protectionism, trade wars, and resource insecurity, the Super Region offers something rare: a globally accessible, non-aligned, compliance-ready mineral supply framework. It enables governments to secure strategic materials without compromising sovereignty. It enables manufacturers to meet ESG standards without compromising competitiveness. And it enables investors to back mineral infrastructure that is resilient, diversified, and bankable.

Saudi Arabia is not replacing China—it is redefining the model. A neutral platform that connects rather than controls, builds rather than dominates, and enables rather than extracts.

This is the essence of the post-China mineral world. And in that world, the Super Region stands not on the periphery, but at the center.