Saudi Arabia builds a new minerals route
Beyond emergency transport, Saudi Arabia is also using the crisis to accelerate a broader minerals strategy. The kingdom has ordered Maaden to expand production of phosphate, gold and aluminium, with investment plans worth up to US$110 billion over the next decade.
Maaden is working with MP Materials of the United States and the US Department of Defense on rare-earth extraction and processing, a move that could make Saudi Arabia an important part of Western efforts to reduce dependence on China for critical minerals.
The company is also a key force behind Saudi Arabia’s rise as the world’s third-largest phosphate exporter. Normally, phosphate is mined, processed into fertiliser pellets and shipped to global markets through the Strait of Hormuz.
With the maritime route under severe pressure, Maaden has had to build a backup path through the desert to keep exports moving. The biggest obstacle has not been the long overland journey itself, because Saudi Arabia already has cross-country highways, but the infrastructure at the destination. Red Sea ports were not originally designed to handle massive volumes of phosphate exports.
Maaden has therefore had to redesign large parts of its logistics system, from building prefabricated warehouses for fertiliser to installing special systems for transferring sulphuric acid, a corrosive chemical used in phosphate production, into stainless-steel tanker trucks.
The fertiliser issue is particularly important for food security. Earlier analysis warned that the effective closure of Hormuz could push fertiliser prices sharply higher, as the route handles a large share of global seaborne oil trade and more than a third of world urea exports.
A costly shock absorber for the global economy
Overland transport cannot fully replace maritime shipping, and it is more expensive. But for now, the new truck, rail, pipeline and port routes are acting as a shock absorber for the global economy, helping maintain some trade flows and preventing inflationary pressure from becoming even worse.
The Hormuz crisis has exposed a core weakness in the modern global economy: relying too heavily on a single route can leave entire supply chains vulnerable to war or geopolitical disruption. Gulf countries are therefore not only trying to survive the current conflict, but also building permanent backup systems so the world is less easily trapped by one blocked chokepoint.
At the start of the war, analysts at commodity research firm CRU questioned whether Saudi exports could still reach global markets. But in recent weeks, cargo-tracking data from Kpler showed phosphate products from Yanbu on the Red Sea had already reached Djibouti, Thailand and Argentina.
CRU analyst Peter Harrison described the emergency response as a “logistics miracle” for Saudi Arabia.