As part of its commitment to achieving the highest level of sustainable economic development, the Board of Directors of the leading AMAC mining factories reviewed the strategic development plan until 2025 and approved a package of initiatives aimed at expanding the scope of its operations and enhancing its growth in line with the Kingdom's vision for economic diversification and sustainable development.
The approved strategic development plan until 2025 is based on a number of specific initiatives aimed at activating the currently available development opportunities by expanding development operations for several existing sites and mines thereby increasing their productivity and increasing their operational efficiency, and expanding exploration operations at all new sites. The new initiatives are based on two main axes: The first is to activate current development opportunities.
This includes the development of the gold reserves at the Katina site, the gold reserves of this site extend over a distance of 1.5 kilometers, providing a great opportunity to increase the Company's gold production. It is expected that production from the gold reserves will commence within a period of not more than six months of obtaining the mining license, which is in its final stage, and we expect it to be issued during the year 2024, and the expansion and development of sub-sites will be developed and production will be started from fossil sites such as the Sukari site to supply the gold processing plant at the Qiyan site. Qiyan's exploration and mining license, including the Al Aqiq site, also includes a number of shallow reserves that can extend the operational life of the Qiyan Gold Plant.
AMAC also intends to conduct assessments to determine the stock level of gold reserves at the New Immigration site as an additional source of ore, in addition to underground mining at the Kian Mine: Underground mining operations at the Kian Mine are scheduled to commence in the second quarter of 2025, with ore to be supplied to the Kian Gold Plant, which is expected to contribute to reducing the cost of gold production by up to $400 per ounce, given that the degree of purity in underground mining reserves is high, and mining costs are significantly lower compared to deep surface mining operations, and Development of the Naham Iron Oxide Project: Starting the production of oxide ore from the Naham Mine within three months of the issuance of the mining licence, which is in its final stage and we expect it to be issued during the expiry of 2024.
The mine has resources of over seven million tonnes which are used in the cement industry to meet the local demand for this raw material, as the local consumption of cement factories is over one million tonnes annually.
The second axis involves creating new opportunities for growth, and the strategic development plan focuses on a set of initiatives aimed at expanding the scope of the companies' operations in new markets and regions, focusing on developing a group of new projects in order to increase the level of sustainability and achieve a higher level of efficiency: such as the establishment of “Specialized Drilling and Prospecting”, a limited liability drilling company wholly owned by AMAK, dedicated to accelerating the exploration program for the current licenses obtained by AMAK, which number 21 licenses, including 17 base metal licenses with an area of 1,296.4 square kilometers and two licenses for industrial minerals quartz, manganese and silica with an area of 110.91 square kilometers – two licenses for the mining of gold, copper, zinc and silver with an area of 52.48 square kilometers. This company will also provide drilling and related services to other customers in the Kingdom.