The Minexchange has signed joint venture agreements with several Saudi Arabian companies as it seeks to build and replicate its database of transactable mining assets in the Kingdom.
Speaking to Mining.com.au on the sidelines of the Future Minerals Forum (FMF) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia last week, CEO and Head of Australia Lachy Nicholas says The Minexchange is seeking to list all Saudi assets through its platform and facilitate access to Western capital as the Kingdom emerges as a minerals hub.
“Even from an Australian perspective, I know a lot of Australian companies that would be very eager and keen to start looking in a jurisdiction like Saudi Arabia because they haven’t before,” Nicholas tells this news service.
“If they can navigate the landscape here, which they’ll be able to because the locals are very, very keen to open that up, I think it’s going to be an incredibly prospective place.
“But from a mine exchange perspective, we’re growing every day as the largest transactive database of mining assets globally.”
As a database of marketable mining assets, The Minexchange empowers buyers, sellers, and agents to connect and transact in a transparent global marketplace.
The platform seeks to solve the bottleneck for mining projects with limited pathways to transactions and is used by more than 10,000 decision makers in the resources sector.
The CEO tells Mining.com.au that as 2026 unfolds, the market should monitor The Minexchange’s activity in Saudi Arabia, particularly with its JV partners, and as the country rolls out its Vision 2030 and diversifies away from oil dependency.
He believes the Kingdom will emerge as one of the biggest mineral hubs globally in the next few years and The Minexchange plans on capitalising on the expected influx of exchange of assets in and out of the country.
‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure‘
Nicholas says in simple terms, The Minexchange operates much in the same way as Realestate.com but for mining assets, projects, and tenders.
“We found very quickly, especially in Australia, that there wasn’t an easy way to both list and also look for assets without word-of-mouth, jurisdictionally, who you know,” the CEO tells this news service.
“Equally, this was limiting the buyer network to really who is around you and who knows of the project. We found very quickly that there wasn’t a platform where people could transparently both list and find projects globally, but also access other avenues of joint venture capital around the world that they might have not seen before.
“Furthermore, we needed to make pretty much the largest database of transactable mining assets. And there have been elements where people have tried this in the past, but there’ve been a few loopholes where they’ve fallen through.
“And I think where we’ve managed to capture the audience here is really the buyer network and the buyer database. And getting a lot of these mandates globally, it’s actually allowed us, not only in Australia, but all over the world, to allow our clients and people who list their assets to not only get a hold of high-end investors and high-networths globally to buy these mines, but opportunities to even extend or expand their land portfolio of where their flagships might be already.”
“They’re (Saudi Government) incredibly, incredibly open, especially with us and our platform, to want to get as many assets on there as possible, which is a beautiful proof in the pudding of our model”
Nicholas adds that with the Saudi Vision 2030, the move away from oil dependency, and becoming more of a minerals hub is ideal for The Minexchange to not only bridge the investment gap between the Kingdom and the rest of the world but also facilitate the exchange of assets in and out of the country.
ASX companies in particular can now move outside the normal realms as Saudi Arabia “opens up” and becomes a favourable jurisdiction for mining. Nicholas believes from a national level, the Saudis are doing everything they can to receive inbound crossborder investment.
“They’re (Saudi Government) incredibly, incredibly open, especially with us and our platform, to want to get as many assets on there as possible, which is a beautiful proof in the pudding of our model,” he explains to Mining.com.au.
“Coming over here (to FMF in Riyadh), especially, we’ve been influxed with questions on pretty much mainly JVs and how they can access capital, but they are all so eager to get not only Canadian, Australian, US expertise in, but they’re also very keen to let go of some of these non-core assets and open them up to the world.”
The CEO notes many of the assets in Saudi Arabia are at an early stage because oil and gas has been a dominant industry for so long. Bringing some of the exploration expertise from Western countries like Australia, Canada, US, as well as the rest of the world will further help the Kingdom monetise these assets, he adds.
In terms of criteria for listing assets on The Minexchange, Nicholas says assets from early greenfield to brownfield to as advanced as possible are welcome on the platform.
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. You never know the motive or reason why a buyer wants to buy. There could be someone that purely doesn’t want it for the elements. They just need to build a bigger land package for an IPO, and this person holds a small tenement around them,” he continues.
“There could be an example where an international-owned company might need to come in for offtake reasons. You never really know. From our perspective, we’ll take them from any stage because there’s always a buyer regardless. Even if it’s not for pure mining purposes, which we found quite heavily recently.”
FMF is organised by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources and took place from 13-15 January 2026. Mining.com.au had a team on the floor at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Centre and was also an official media partner.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Unsplash & Mining.com.au
