Ventyx, an ABB company, has signed a $2.8 million deal with Ma’aden Gold and Base Metals Co, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ma’aden, the largest mining company in Saudi Arabia. Ventyx will supply its market-leading mining operations software solutions to enhance planning and performance in Ma’aden’s gold operations. A diversified mining company, Ma’aden will implement Ventyx Intelligent Mining Solutions across the four existing mines of its Ma’aden Gold and Base Metals subsidiary. The company also has plans to significantly expand its gold production in the coming years with a number of new projects due to come online. “Ventyx has a long and successful record of helping complex, large-scale mining operations such as ours to optimize their performance,” said Yahia AlShangiti, President of Ma’aden Gold and Base Metals Company. “We have been impressed with both the company’s deep domain expertise in mining, and the power and flexibility of the software. We anticipate that Ventyx will be a strong partner for us.”Specifically, Ma’aden is deploying two core mining applications from Ventyx’s mining software portfolio: Ventyx Production Accounting, which streamlines metal accounting and provides insight into plant performance, and Ventyx MineMarket, which allows mining companies to track ore movements from the mine to the plant, manage stockpiles, track and manage logistics, and manage the complex sales and service contracts related to delivering product to customers.“The Saudi mining sector is growing and widely expected to become a ‘third pillar’ of Saudi Arabian industry,” said Craig Jones, COO, Ventyx. “This is a strategically important agreement with Ma’aden, in which we’re partnering with the region’s largest mining company to help further their mining operations. We also see excellent growth possibilities for Ventyx in this important mining region, and will be looking for opportunities to continue expanding our footprint.”Ma’aden was established as a Saudi Arabian joint stock company in March 1997 to facilitate the development of Saudi Arabia’s non-petroleum mineral resources and to diversify the Kingdom’s economy away from the petroleum and petrochemical sectors. Ma’aden is engaged in the development, advancement and improvement of all aspects of the mineral industry, mineral products and by-products, and related industries in Saudi Arabia. It currently has operations in gold, phosphate and industrial minerals, is constructing a fully integrated mine to rolled product aluminum joint venture with Alcoa, and has significant exploration activities underway in Saudi Arabia (see the Saudi article in International Mining’s August issue).