Al-Hajar Mine

Al-Hajar Mine is one of the gold mines in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, located in Bishah Governorate in Aseer Province. The process of re-crushing the ore and extracting gold is carried out using the heap leaching method.

Al-Hajar Mine is located 710 km southeast of the capital, Riyadh. It is considered an open-pit mine, and the ore is processed by the heap leaching method. It was opened in 2001 with a production capacity of 750,000 t annually. Since 2006, mining operations have been limited to exploiting refractory ore located sixteen km away from al-Hajar Mine. This refractory ore has an estimated production capacity of about three hundred thousand t and a gold concentration of 1.7 g/t. Work continued until the end of August 2012.

Al-Hajar Mine is divided into two parts: the northern part, where the ore is estimated to be around 2.27 million t, containing approximately 2.5 g/t of gold and forty-five to forty-nine g/t of silver, and the southern part, where the ore is estimated to be about 5.37 million t, with a concentration of around 1.45 g/t of gold and twenty-eight g/t of silver.

Gold sales at al-Hajar Mine in 2010 amounted to about 9,192 oz. of gold, compared to 10,493 oz. of gold in 2009. In 2011, sales volume reached 5,901 oz. of gold.