Saudi Arabia’s Maaden and Bahrain’s Alba end aluminum deal talks

The merger would have created a global aluminium powerhouse

Saudi Arabian Mining Co. called off talks to swap two units for shares in its Bahraini rival that would have created one of the world’s biggest aluminum producers.

Maaden, as the Saudi company is known, had said in September that it was planning to sell the entire share capital of Maaden Aluminium Co. and Maaden Bauxite and Alumina Co. to Aluminium Bahrain BSC, also called Alba. In exchange, Alba would issue new shares for allotment to Maaden.

Alba’s stock dropped as much as 10% in Bahrain trading — the most since September 2022 — while Maaden fell 1.5%. The companies didn’t disclose why the deal talks were called off. They had late last year extended their non-binding terms by four months.

Following the announcement in September, Maaden had signed a separate agreement to buy shares in Alba that were held by a unit of petrochemical company Saudi Basic Industries Corp., in a deal valued at about $1 billion.

«The sudden termination of discussions comes as a surprise, given that the deadline was extended to 2Q25 only recently,» the Riyadh-based market analysis company Sico Research said in a note.

Maaden and Alba have become major players in the global aluminum industry in recent years, particularly in value-added products that have historically been dominated by a handful of suppliers. Their expanded company would have been one of the world’s largest aluminum producers, competing with leading smelters in China and Russia.

The hydrocarbon-rich Gulf states are focusing on low-carbon metals manufacturing as part of their economic diversification strategies. The region is a global leader in aluminium production, accounting for about 10% of output. Nearly a third of the Gulf’s aluminium production is exported to the US and the EU.