Saudi Arabia's Rare-Earth Push Moves Into Processing: What New Refining Capacity Means for Conveyor and Bulk Handling Demand

Short answer: Saudi Arabia's Jabal Sayid discovery in the Madinah Region is now estimated at 114 million tonnes of resources, including an estimated 552,000 tonnes of heavy rare earths and 355,000 tonnes of light rare earths, with one analysis placing it fourth globally. But the decisive news for equipment suppliers is not the tonnage — it is the shift to domestic processing. Ma'aden and MP Materials have signed a binding term sheet, backed by the US Department of War, to build and operate a rare-earth refining and separation facility in the Kingdom. A refinery is a conveyor-intensive plant: ore receiving, crushing, grinding feed, leaching residue, dried product and packaging all move on belts. This article explains what that pipeline implies for conveyor belt specification in Saudi Arabia.

For quarry and cement operators, the relevance may not be obvious at first. It becomes clearer when you look at what a minerals processing plant actually is: a sequence of solid-material transfers, most of them continuous, most of them handling material that is either abrasive, hot, wet or extremely fine.

What Changed in October 2026

Two developments within a single week moved Saudi Arabia's critical minerals agenda from exploration headlines toward industrial infrastructure.

On 10 October 2026, Arab News reported that the Jabal Sayid resource in the Madinah Region is estimated at 114 million tonnes, revised upward from the 110 million tonnes cited when the discovery was announced in September. A Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis, citing the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources and Ma'aden, estimated 552,000 tonnes of heavy rare earths — including dysprosium and terbium — and 355,000 tonnes of light rare earths, including neodymium and praseodymium, and suggested the site could rank fourth globally.

Two days earlier, AGBI reported that Saudi Aramco had awarded a five-year contract to a US oilfield services provider to establish the Kingdom's first lithium extraction project, targeting first production next year.

The refining facility is the decisive piece

Exploration does not consume conveyor belts. Processing plants do. The Ma'aden and MP Materials partnership is designed to build and operate a rare-earth refining and separation facility in the Kingdom, with Ma'aden holding no less than 51 percent of the joint venture while MP Materials and the US Department of War, through a joint venture, target a combined 49 percent stake. The facility is being designed to process, refine and separate rare earth elements using feedstock from Saudi Arabia and other global sources — an agreement that followed an MoU signed in May 2025 covering mining, separation, refining and magnet production.

That is a full value chain, and every stage after the mine gate is a materials handling problem.

Why tonnage is not the deciding factor

Experts quoted in the Arab News report were consistent on one point: separation, not discovery, is the hard part. Kurt Radtke, who spent nearly five years at Ma'aden, warned against focusing on the headline tonnage figure, noting that grade, mineralogy, continuity and economically recoverable content matter more, and that establishing those requires additional drilling, metallurgical testing, flowsheet development and pilot work. He added that Saudi Arabia will need processing technology, laboratories, experienced metallurgists and engineers, reliable reagent supply chains, and effective water and residue management.

For equipment suppliers, each of those requirements is a procurement category — and residue management, in particular, is a conveying category.

Why Processing Plants, Not Mines, Create Conveyor Demand

A mining operation moves material with haul trucks and loaders. A processing plant moves material with belts. The moment ore enters a concentrator or refinery flowsheet, the material stops being moved in batches and starts being moved continuously — because downstream stages cannot tolerate an intermittent feed.

The flowsheet stages that move solids

Rare-earth processing typically proceeds through ore receiving and stockpiling, primary and secondary crushing, grinding or milling, physical beneficiation such as flotation, gravity or magnetic separation, chemical leaching, separation and precipitation, then drying, calcination and packaging. Lithium projects follow a comparable path from ore or concentrate through crushing, grinding and thermal or chemical conversion to a dried, bagged product.

Almost every one of those stages is fed and discharged by belt conveyor or a related transfer system. The exceptions are reactors and solvent-extraction circuits, which are liquid processes — and even those produce solid residues that must be conveyed away.

What that means in equipment terms

Three characteristics of minerals processing plants create conveyor demand that differs from a quarry or a cement plant.

Transfer points multiply. A quarry line has a handful of transfers between crusher, screen, stockpile and load-out. A refinery flowsheet has dozens, because chemical stages are fed from solids-handling systems rather than by them. Each transfer point is a place where belt wear, spillage and dust generation concentrate.

Residues and by-products must be moved. Leaching residue, gypsum-rich by-products and tailings all need to leave the process, often in wet or damp condition, and often in volumes that rival the product stream. Residue handling is frequently the largest belt count in a hydrometallurgical plant.

The product is a fine, dry powder. Neodymium oxide, rare-earth carbonate and lithium carbonate are fine, dusty and valuable. Conveying them requires belt cleaning, sealed or covered transfer points, and dust control — a very different duty from moving crushed stone.

The Materials Are Harder on Belts Than Quarry Stone

Mineral processing materials combine several wear mechanisms at once, and they combine them in the same flowsheet.

Two structural features of Saudi Arabia amplify these risks: high ambient temperature, which accelerates cover ageing and stresses splice adhesion, and long operating hours, which compress a year of wear into a shorter window.

The practical rule is that a mineral processing plant should not inherit a quarry belt specification by default. The duty is narrower in lump size but harder in chemistry, temperature and cleanliness requirements.

A Procurement Checklist for Mineral Processing Projects in the Kingdom

Because flowsheet details arrive late in project development, equipment procurement on mineral processing projects tends to be compressed. The following sequence keeps belt selection from becoming the bottleneck.

Step 1 — Fix the solids handling matrix early

For every solid stream in the flowsheet, record bulk density, particle size range, moisture, temperature, chemical character and design tonnage per hour. This matrix, not the general arrangement drawing, determines belt specification. It is worth building it before detailed engineering begins, because late changes to belt width or strength propagate into structure, idlers and pulleys.

Step 2 — Separate product duty from residue duty

Product streams justify tighter specification and better cleaning. Residue streams justify abrasion and chemical resistance, and often accept a lower specification elsewhere. Treating both as one belt type is the most common overspend in processing plants — and the most common source of underperformance.

Step 3 — Specify to recognised standards

For textile-carcass belts, ISO 14890 specifies requirements for rubber- or plastics-covered conveyor belts of textile construction for general use, and the standard moved to a 2026 edition. Specifying against a published standard gives procurement a defensible baseline when comparing offers from different countries and manufacturers.

Step 4 — Decide splice strategy with the belt, not after it

Hot vulcanized splicing restores a high proportion of the belt's own strength, while mechanical fasteners deliberately introduce a weaker joint. In wet or dusty processing environments, the splice is usually the first failure point, so the joint method belongs in the specification rather than in the installation plan.

Step 5 — Plan for commissioning conditions

Start-up and commissioning are the harshest period a belt will experience: inconsistent feed, temporary loading conditions, incomplete dust control and unfamiliar operating practice. Planning belt specification and spare coverage for that period prevents early damage that becomes a permanent reliability problem.

What This Means for Saudi Industrial Localisation

The rare-earth and lithium announcements are part of a wider pattern in which Saudi Arabia is deliberately moving downstream. The stated objective is not simply to extract minerals but to develop domestic processing and manufacturing capability and capture more value inside the Kingdom — with the Saudi Press Agency reporting the value of the Kingdom's rare-earth discoveries at USD 100 billion, up 90 percent from 2018, and Saudi Geological Survey studies identifying two advanced-stage exploration areas with an estimated 644 million tonnes of resources.

That shift has a direct consequence for maintenance and procurement teams: processing plants need far more consumable and wear-part support than mines of equivalent output. Belts, idlers, pulleys, lagging and splicing consumables are recurring demand, not one-off project purchases.

It also raises the value of local capability. A refinery in the Madinah Region cannot wait two months for a belt or for a splicing crew. Availability, response time and local stock become part of the project's economics rather than a commercial detail.

How BEDROCK Supports Mineral Processing Projects in Saudi Arabia

BEDROCK is a conveyor system solutions provider based in Dammam, serving quarry, cement, concrete batching, building-material and bulk handling customers across the Kingdom, backed by a 16-year engineering and manufacturing base in Ningbo operating as KILOMEGA.

For mineral processing duty, the same specification discipline that improves belt life in Saudi quarries applies directly.

Stream-by-stream selection. Belt carcass strength, cover grade and joint method are specified against each solid stream's material, temperature, moisture and tonnage — not against a single plant-wide assumption.

Heat and abrasion competence. The Kingdom's operating conditions and process temperatures both shorten belt life, and BEDROCK already supplies belt solutions for heat and abrasion-intensive applications in cement, clinker and quarry duty.

Splicing capability on site. Our engineers carry out hot vulcanized jointing with a target splice efficiency above 90%, and can attend site for critical joints rather than advising remotely.

Local response and stock. Remote technical support within 24 hours, a defined on-site response path for downtime, and local spare-parts stock in Saudi Arabia for critical components.

Performance tracking. Where a belt is measured, it can be optimised; we follow up on wear and splice condition during use so that the next specification is better than the first.

Our product range covers industrial conveyor belts for abrasive, hot, wet and fine-material duty, supported by technical services from selection through installation and performance tracking.

Specifying belts for a processing flowsheet? Send us the solids handling matrix — material, particle size, moisture, temperature and tonnage per hour for each stream — and our engineers will return a belt and splice specification per stream.

Contact BEDROCK WhatsApp: +966 56 171 7029 · Email: [email protected] · Website: www.bedrockco.sa · Salman Farisi St., Khalidiyah Al-Janubiyah, Dammam, Saudi Arabia

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a rare-earth refinery need conveyor belts?

Yes, extensively. Belt conveyors are the main method of moving solids through ore receiving, primary and secondary crushing, grinding feed, beneficiation feed and discharge, dried product handling, and packaging and dispatch. Even the liquid-process stages generate solid residues — leach residue, gypsum-rich by-products and tailings — that must be conveyed away from the process. In most hydrometallurgical plants, residue handling accounts for a large share of the total conveyor count.

What conveyor belt is used for fine powders such as rare-earth oxide or carbonate?

Fine, dry and valuable powders need an abrasion-resistant belt with good release characteristics, effective belt cleaning at the discharge point, and enclosed or covered transfer points to control dust and prevent product loss. Material carryback is the dominant problem in this duty: powder that sticks to the return side of the belt spreads through the structure, builds up on idlers and pulleys, and causes mistracking. Belt cleaning equipment is therefore part of the specification, not an accessory.

What is the difference between ISO 14890 and ISO 15236 for conveyor belts?

They cover different belt constructions. ISO 14890 specifies requirements for rubber- or plastics-covered conveyor belts of textile construction for general use — the EP or fabric-carcass belts commonly used in processing plants — and moved to a 2026 edition. ISO 15236 addresses steel cord conveyor belts, where steel cords run longitudinally as the reinforcement, typically for higher-tension, long-distance duty. Specifying against the correct standard for the carcass type gives procurement an objective baseline for comparison.

Why is tailings and residue handling the hardest conveying duty?

Residues are usually wet or damp, chemically active and variable in consistency, and they typically flow at the highest tonnage in the plant. That combination stresses cover compound selection, tracking and splice integrity at the same time, while the material is often seen as low value, so it receives less engineering attention than the product stream. Giving residue duty its own belt specification instead of inheriting the product specification is one of the cheapest reliability improvements available in a processing plant.

Do I need a heat-resistant belt for calcined or dried mineral products?

Yes. Calcination and thermal drying leave the product at elevated temperature, and heat accelerates cover ageing while stressing splice adhesion. A heat-resistant cover compound is required, and the splice compound must be matched to the operating temperature — specifying a heat-resistant belt while splicing it with a standard compound defeats the purpose. Both the maximum material temperature and the site's ambient temperature range should be stated when requesting a specification.

What incline can a conveyor handle in a processing plant?

Standard smooth belts are generally limited to modest inclines before material rolls back, with the practical limit depending on material characteristics and surcharge angle. Where the flowsheet requires steeper transfer — stockpile feed, for example — chevron or cleated belts are used, or the route is re-planned. Incline interacts with belt selection, so it belongs in the solids handling matrix rather than appearing later as a layout constraint.

How should procurement plan belts for a mineral processing project?

Build a solids handling matrix covering every solid stream — bulk density, particle size range, moisture, temperature, chemical character and design tonnage per hour — and specify belts per stream rather than per plant. Fix the splice strategy with the belt specification, because in wet or dusty duty the splice is the first failure point. Plan spare and consumable coverage for commissioning, when feed conditions are most inconsistent, and price local availability into the comparison, not just unit cost.

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