# 1 Trillion Dollar Discovery of Minerals in Afghanistan



## OldSolduer (14 Jun 2010)

Please see link.

Mods.....if this has been posted elsewhere please feel free to move it.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100614/world/us_afghanistan_economy_minerals

This could prove to be very interesting.


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## tomahawk6 (14 Jun 2010)

To mine these minerals there has to be some stability/security. If the PRC offers combat troops we will know why. ;D


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## The Bread Guy (14 Jun 2010)

The Chinese have already been nibbling away at some of these treasures:
http://www.afghan-web.com/economy/china_investment.html


> China has won a *$3.5 billion* contract to develop Afghanistan's Aynak copper field, the largest foreign direct investment project in the history of Afghanistan.
> 
> The size of the bid -- almost double the expected amount -- surprised other potential foreign investors.
> 
> ...



More here:
http://worlddevelopment.suite101.com/article.cfm/afghanistans_treasure_trove
http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2009/10/china_digs_in_to_grab_afghan_m.html

Also, something similar came out a while back:
http://www.mom.gov.af/index.php?page_id=60


> Afghanistan has abundant mineral resources, including known deposits of copper, iron, ‎barite, sulfur, talc, chromium, magnesium, salt, mica, marble, rubies, emerald, lapis lazuli, ‎asbestos, nickel, mercury, gold and silver, lead, zinc, fluorspar, bauxite, beryllium, and ‎lithium. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Afghanistan Geological Survey (AGS)  ‎estimated numbers of undiscovered deposits in Afghanistan by using a geology-based ‎assessment method. Estimates of known and undiscovered copper resources total nearly ‎‎60 million metric tons of copper. Resources for iron in known deposits are more than ‎‎2,200 million metric tons of iron ore ....


More here:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1819


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## Retired AF Guy (14 Jun 2010)

Mid Aged Silverback said:
			
		

> Please see link.
> 
> Mods.....if this has been posted elsewhere please feel free to move it.
> 
> ...





> "unknown reserves of lithium, iron, gold, niobium, cobalt and other minerals"


 Can't be true. Eric Margolis has been telling us all along that the war is about oil and he's an expert. After all, he wrote a book about the Afghan War, has visited the region, took tea with the chief of the Pakistani ISI, so he should know.  Must be CIA propaganda. ;D


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## OldSolduer (15 Jun 2010)

Retired AF Guy said:
			
		

> Can't be true. Eric Margolis has been telling us all along that the war is about oil and he's an expert. After all, he wrote a book about the Afghan War, has visited the region, took tea with the chief of the Pakistani ISI, so he should know.  Must be CIA propaganda. ;D



Oh sorry,,,,,haha....yes George Dubya must be involved....its all his fault.... ;D


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## Rogo (16 Jun 2010)

I am not sure how many companies would actually jump at this sort of thing being that it's in Afghanistan. If Coalition forces withdraw then any capital they have in the region would likely be destroyed or nationalised if the government does not become more secure.  :2c:


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## Colin Parkinson (18 Jun 2010)

Methinks some people have dollar signs in their eyes hoping to sell access to something that no one can currently take advantage of. On the bright side it might encourage them to extend the railways further int the interior of the country. Building a railbed is labour entensive, a good option to give lawful employment to whole bunch of people.

Afghanistan Moves Quickly to Tap Newfound Mineral Reserves
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and MUJIB MASHAL
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Ministry of Mines announced Thursday that it would take the first steps toward opening the country’s reserves to international investors at a meeting next week in London even as Afghans expressed a mixture of hope and doubt about the government’s commitment to develop the country’s newly documented mineral wealth. 

The focus of the meeting will be the Hajigak area of Bamian Province, which has major iron ore deposits, the Mines Minister, Wahidullah Shahrani, said at a news conference here. 

It was Mr. Shahrani’s first public appearance since news that the country had at least $1 trillion in untapped mineral resources became public after an article appeared Monday in The New York Times that detailed findings of the Pentagon and United States Geological Survey. Afghan officials described the $1 trillion estimate conservative and said their estimates suggested the reserves could be worth as much as $3 trillion. 

“This good news has the potential of adding a lot of value to the economy of Afghanistan and it will serve the development of Afghanistan,” Mr. Shahrani said. 

The previously unknown deposits include huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium. With so many minerals that are essential to modern industry, Afghanistan could be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, according to American officials. 

Two hundred mining investors from around the world have been invited to next week’s meeting in London where they will offer suggestions for how to develop the iron ore deposits at Hajigak, said Craig Andrews, the principal mining specialist for Afghanistan for the World Bank. 

Then, the ministry will develop a tender offer for that area. For instance, it is possible that the government would require that the bidder develop both a steel plant and the iron ore mine since there are also nearly deposits of coal, Mr. Andrews said. By September, the government hopes to be able to solicit expressions of interest from mining companies and perhaps by December narrow the number to five or six companies who have the capacity to undertake such a large the project. 

Non-governmental western mining experts will be helping the ministry develop the bidding process, said Mr. Andrews. Mr. Shahrani pledged to make the bidding and contracting of mining rights as transparent as possible in order to reduce the possibility of corruption. He said the ministry would post contracts on its Web site and would try to brief reporters, and by extension the public. Copies of the contracts would be made available to members of Parliament and to members of civil society. 

Mr. Shahrani and his advisers cautioned against overly high expectations, underscoring that development takes years and that there are many obstacles to overcome not least of all the lack of security in some of the areas with the most minerals and the lack of a transportation infrastructure. 

In Kabul, students and shopkeepers alike said they thought the government had the capability to develop mines eventually, but not without help from foreigners. 

“The current government does not have the ability to launch such big projects — neither administratively, nor in terms of security,” said Ghulam Hazrat, a shopkeeper who sells spare parts for cars. 

Mr. Hazrat held up his right index finger, which was disfigured when he fought the Russians in the 1980s; he pointed to two scars on his leg and one on his chest from the early 1990s when warlords were fighting each other to control the country. 

“Thousands have made sacrifices like me in their lifetime. But I am sure I won’t see any benefits from such mines in my life and neither will you in yours. Whether my children will , I don’t know.” 

An adviser to the minister, Abdul Rahman Ashraf, struck a similar note when asked by a young reporter at the news conference whether his generation would see the benefit of the mineral reserves. “Your generation should not think that this $3 trillion is an amount you can spend, but, your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren will have the right for this reserves,” he said. 

“We need to learn how to use it.” 

Faisal Farooqi, a first-year student at Kabul University, studying law and political science, was more optimistic and he said he saw the reserves and the international attention to them as something the country needs to take advantage of. 

“It is time we show the will,” to take advantage of such wealth, he said. “It is an opportunity for us to get out of this misery and we should grab it with both hands — even if our hands are shaky.” 


Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting.


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## Dog Walker (19 Jun 2010)

Next for Afghanistan, the Curse of Plenty?
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: June 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/weekinreview/20mcneil.html

Let’s suppose there is $1 trillion worth of minerals under Afghanistan, as senior American officials and a confidential Pentagon memo said last week. 
Is that a good thing — for either Afghanistan or the United States? 
Some experts in mining and in Third World resource politics argue that it is not. 
Because it takes up to 20 years for a mine to start earning profits and Afghanistan has been a battleground for 31 years, “no mining company in its right mind would go into Afghanistan now,” said Murray W. Hitzman, a professor of economic geology at the Colorado School of Mines. 
The country’s underground treasure “will be good for the warlords and good for China, but not good for Afghans or the United States,” predicted Michael T. Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Massachusetts and the author of “Resource Wars” and “Blood and Oil.” 
History tends to second such skepticism. The great empires of the world were built thanks to gold mines, not atop them. It’s the little mercantile nations with their cohesive political systems and fierce navies that have looted the big feudal ones paved with rubies. 
Arid Spain and Portugal siphoned off South America’s gold; tiny Holland dominated vast Indonesia. Britain, barren except for coal, built an imperial swap shop of grain, lumber, cotton, tea, tobacco, opium, gems, silver and slaves. Japan, less than a century out of its bamboo-armor era, conquered much of China for its iron and coal. The post-colonial era hasn’t been easier on the resource-rich have-nots. 
“Countries with a history of conflict have perverse effects from mineral wealth — more war, more corruption, less democracy and more inequality,” said Terry Lynn Karl, a political science professor at Stanford and the author of “The Paradox of Plenty,” which shows how the populations of poor countries like Nigeria often get poorer after oil is discovered and a tiny elite benefits. 
It has long been known, geologists said, that Afghanistan has huge deposits of copper, iron, gold, cobalt and many other minerals, including lithium, an element vital to modern batteries. An internal Pentagon memo suggested that Afghanistan could become “the Saudi Arabia of lithium.” 
But some experts suggested that the lithium prediction was optimistic and that Saudi Arabia was not the best example of what sudden wealth does in a poor country. That kingdom and its neighboring emirates have tiny populations ruled over by powerful, cohesive families. And the Arabian peninsula is flat, open and easy to police in a crisis, as the war to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait proved. 
Afghanistan, said Dr. Klare, is more like eastern Congo: home to diamonds and coltan — another element vital to modern electronics. Both are full of warring tribes, illiterate populations, corrupt governments and brutal warlords. And both are rugged and remote, far from coastlines and with few roads or railroads, making it hard to get minerals out and policing forces in. 
Rich as eastern Congo is, the lot of its population for the last 15 years has been disease, starvation and massacres at the hands of local militias and invaders from Rwanda, Angola and Zimbabwe. 
Mozambique and Angola also illustrate the “resource curse,” said William S. K. Reno, a political science professor at Northwestern University and the author of “Warlord Politics and African States.” 
Both were Portuguese colonies that fell into civil war after being freed in 1975. There was less to fight over in Mozambique, which had only cashews and shrimp to export, so the war was shorter and less intense. But in Angola, with the rebels holding the diamond mines and the government owning the oil, profits were squandered on tanks and jet fighters. The war lasted a decade longer. 
Compared with those countries, Afghanistan is at disadvantage, mining experts said. Even for $1 trillion, its riches may not be worth digging up. 
Compared with oil drilling, minerals mining is extraordinarily expensive and time-consuming. As everyone from Jed Clampett to BP has discovered, a bubblin’ crude can emerge under its own pressure as soon as the earth’s surface is pricked. 
Diamond mining is also comparatively cheap — diamonds are formed in pipes of softer kimberlite pushed up by volcanoes and usually mined in open pits or dug out of the beds of rivers that washed the volcanoes away. After that, they are simply sorted out of the gravel. 
But gold, silver, copper and other minerals are usually locked in ore that must be tunneled down to, blasted out by the ton, carried to the surface, and ground into powder for processing. Digging the shafts and building elevators, processing plants, railroads and tarmac roads “can cost hundreds of millions to billions for a single mining operation,” said Roderick Eggert, director of the economics division at the Colorado School of Mines. “Even a small gold mine is $100 million.” 
And while an oil well can go from discovery to production in two or three years, “it would take 5 to 15 years to go from where most of Afghanistan is now to an operating mine,” he said. 
After that, added his colleague Dr. Hitzman, “even with a good mine, it takes 5 to 10 years to recoup your investment. What’s Afghanistan going to be like in five years?” 
Also, someone must provide security, and 20 years of security by the United States military would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. 
England, Holland, Spain, Portugal and Japan all discovered that the costs of policing empires outweighed the financial gains and that it was more practical to let private companies shoulder the risks. Mineral prices fluctuate wildly, and $1 trillion today may soon be much less. Gold broke the $1,000-an-ounce barrier for the first time last year. But it had hit $873 in 1980 — the equivalent of $2,300 today — and then languished under $500 for years. 
The biggest force driving most mineral prices up today, experts said, is China. (Gold is the exception, driven up by fears about economic instability.) 
China is not invading the way old empires did. Its state companies bid for concessions all over the Third World. “But,” Professor Klare added, “they don’t care about bribery, transparency or the rule of law and they don’t mind dealing with warlords, while the Western countries are more constrained.” Also, as state-owned companies, they can take risks that private ones dare not. 
Which does not immunize them, he added. China is facing criticism in Zambia after workers died in its copper mines there or were shot dead protesting working conditions. 
And, experts said, while Afghanistan does have lithium deposits, so do many other countries, including the United States. Whether it pays to extract it depends on the price of lithium. Recently, South Korea said it would build a plant to extract it from seawater that, if world prices rise, can supply far more than Korea needs. 
Which could leave Afghanistan as the Saudi Arabia of sand.


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## Rogo (19 Jun 2010)

I agree that it would not likely be good for either but this is mostly based upon risk.  It's not that it is a bad idea, just tremendously risky.


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## GAP (27 Jan 2012)

France Unearths Forgotten Maps Of Afghanistan’s Natural Resource Riches
14/12/2011
Article Link

Before Afghanistan descended into civil war, a French geologist collected massive data on the country’s mining resources. His findings, recently rediscovered, could unlock huge wealth in the troubled nation. But look who’s already busy exploiting it...

BEAUVAIS - Afghanistan’s many troubles are compounded by the fact that it is the world’s largest producer of opium. But it also has vast natural resources beyond its poppy fields, with the United States putting its mining potential at about one trillion dollars and others citing estimates of maybe even three times as much. Cobalt, lithium, copper, oil, gold, rare earth – everything that the world needs to feed its factories is thought to be there.

Yet detailed information about the specific locations of the deposits needed to guide explorations has long been lacking. That, however, may be about to change with the identification of old French missionary maps of the Afghan territory that could unlock the country’s still-buried resources.

The maps, yellowed by time, have been housed at the La Salle Institute in Beauvais, France, and contain extensive geological records of Afghanistan’s regions. The information was compiled by French geological explorations between 1961 and 1978 led by a renowned geologist Albert de Lapparent, who was also a Catholic priest.
More on link


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## brihard (27 Jan 2012)

More ismply mined base metals like copper, silver, gold, iron ore, etc? Sure, quite possible. Move into stuff that takes a bit more expertise and technological finesse, or greater infrastructure- say, Lithium or oil - and it gets a bit more questionable. Rare earths? Absolutely not; that's a very complex market and the author is ignorant to even suggest there's real market potential in that sector from Afghanistan unless they find unheard of HREE grades.

The commodities sector is not nearly as simple as many would believe. Simply by virtue of the challenges of attracting venture capital I think China will lock most of it down. State capitalism beats the hell out of the free market in terms of being first to the punch in a dangerous area. Free market investors will still be agonizing over security and potential nationalization as the Chinese snap up contracts.


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## Colin Parkinson (31 Jan 2012)

One look at the geology of Afghanistan and you knew it’s a promising place for minerals, in fact the building of the dams in the 50’s and 60’s, raised the local watertables, pushing the minerals up to contaminate the topsoil.

Mines and in particular open pit mines are all about infrastructure. There are barely any roads and likely no roads servicing the areas of the deposits, there is not enough electricity now and no easy way to create it. Plus the power lines will have to be built, without power, you can’t process the ore and shipping bulk ore across the country with only about 10km of rail lines is impossible. It may be possible to generate power from NG, but the wells need to drilled, pipelines built, power stations built, power lines built to the mines. Then you need fuel and the closest source is Iran, which can’t even refine enough fuel for itself. After all that you need people with skills, who is going to build all of this? You can only pre-build a small portion elsewhere as the roads won’t be able to stand the weight and size of the components. 
The Chinese and Indians will provide some the expertise, but even then we are talking about a decade to a generation before we see a major operational mine.


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## a_majoor (31 Jan 2012)

Nothing wrong with that really; it will take a decade or more to get the cadre of trained and educated people needed to engineer and build the roads and infrastructure. An of course the investments by India and China will probably have much more of a stabilizing influence as people decide they like the new, higher paying jobs more than they fear the Taliban.


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## TN2IC (13 Feb 2012)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> Nothing wrong with that really; it will take a decade or more to get the cadre of trained and educated people needed to engineer and build the roads and infrastructure. An of course the investments by India and China will probably have much more of a stabilizing influence as people decide they like the new, higher paying jobs more than they fear the Taliban.



An investment from China would help greatfully to the local population. Let's hope that it does help the Afghans a lot. They need a source of income. As for the West, we should leave it untapped. Don't need the uneducated think we are there for the minerals now. Just like the "oil" we found.

Personally I bet it won't be online for another 15 years, at least. Build a railway and road system. Plus power to the whole country. It will be a bit of a waiting game.

Is there any new news about this topic lately?

Regards,
TN


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## ModlrMike (13 Feb 2012)

India might see some political mileage here. A strong Afghanistan supported by India would put the squeeze on Pakistan.


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## TN2IC (13 Feb 2012)

I can see China being more of a push, since they connected land wise. If Pakistan was squeeze by India, then the ISI may play a bigger roll with the Taliban. In my opinion, of course. I guess we will have to watch and see. 

Regards,
TN


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## The Bread Guy (13 Feb 2012)

ModlrMike said:
			
		

> India might see some political mileage here. A strong Afghanistan supported by India would put the squeeze on Pakistan.


Which is why I'm guessing Pakistan the Taliban is putting the squeeze on India and its interests in Afghanistan....


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## TN2IC (13 Feb 2012)

I wonder what would happen if the Taliban was to control Afghanistan after NATO pulls out. Would India stick his finger in the pot for the minerals. In which may spark another "holy war" between Islam and Hinduism? And with the turmoil, India and Pakistan over Kashmir. I'm sure India would roll into Pakistan. Launch into a nuclear holocaust. Then we"ll have to go in, as the UN; kill of the Taliban zombies and restart COIN Ops. This time without borders.

Best bet, it to leave it to China. All in my opinion of course.


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## brihard (13 Feb 2012)

I play around in the mining/energy sector- rare earths, graphite, oil, and by extension necessarily have some awareness of the precious metals, base metals and lithium. I've been watching this stuff for a couple years now.

If development is going to happen here it'll mostly be the industrial metals (think copper, iron ore, bauxite) and the gold and silver that will likely accompany some copper deposits due to the metallurgy. These are all relatively simple to mind and to market- not a great deal of expertise is needed relative to other more complex sectors. You don't need to do a great deal of complex benefaction to produce something that others will want to buy as you must with the rare earths or other metals that are mined in a chemically more complex form.

It'll be China, nearly completely. They'll do the exact same thing as they've done in unstable jurisdictions in Africa; buy the mineral exploitation rights wholesale and put it in their strategic bank of resource assets around the globe, knowing that they'll have plenty of time to spend the five or six years necessary to properly prove resources and bring a mine online when they decide it's time to move on it. They'll give good payoffs to the Afghan government, and will keep an eye on the area from a distance- while funding such infrastructure development as suits their long term strategic interest.

Western development of this stuff will be practically non existent. Whereas China practices state capitalism, and can pick its champions and... 'encourage' them to pour money into such ventures, western companies have to raise capital from investors to fund exploration, assay, and development. Practically nobody in their right mind is going to put money into such ventures in Afghanistan when innumerable opportunities exist in much less shitty places. Low labour cost can only serve to an extent to attract investment-cumulatively the risks of operating in such a place would greatly outweigh this marginal advantage. Raising venture capital through equity issues isn't easy under the best of circumstances- you need the people, the property, and the political jurisdiction. Getting a skilled, credible management team that can raise capital and bring a project to fruition *and* will work in a place like Afghanistan on and off for the years needed to do it- good friggin' luck.

Nope, this one's China's- and they're welcome to it in my view.


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## Fishbone Jones (13 Feb 2012)

TN said:
			
		

> I wonder what would happen if the Taliban was to control Afghanistan after NATO pulls out.



What do you mean 'if'? Karzai's already got his bags packed and his accounts offshore.


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## TN2IC (13 Feb 2012)

Totally derail... pure classic! Love the last post. You owe me a new keyboard now.


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