Copper project tests Afghanistan's resources
von Jon Boone (Kabul)
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The war-battered country might not be able to handle a huge but potentially lucrative deal.
The debris left over from previous attempts to extract some of Afghanistan's colossal mineral wealth can be found just 35km south-east of Kabul.
All that remains from Soviet attempts in the 1970s to assess one of the world's biggest copper reserves is exploratory drill holes. But in five years, if all goes to plan, the landscape in the Aynak exploration area will finally be changed into one of the world's largest opencast mines, thanks to a $3bn (Pfund1.5bn) investment by the China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC).
In November, the Chinese state-owned company beat eight other leading mining groups, including Phelps Dodge of the US, Hunter Dickinson of Canada and London-based Kazakhmys, to become the government's preferred bidder.
If contract negotiations are successfully concluded, MCC will have access to a reserve that, with copper prices running high, could be worth $42bn, according to one estimate.
By international standards, it is a huge project, involving the second-largest unexploited deposit in the world. By Afghan standards, it is gargantuan.
And therein lies both the potential reward and risk for a war-battered country that desperately needs the money such a deal could bring but which experts say is unprepared for regulating the sort of mega-projects that have caused social, political and economic catastrophes in other developing nations.
Lorenzo Delesgues, executive director of Integrity Watch Afghanistan, an independent research organisation that last month published a report on Aynak, says Afghanistan is not evenly matched with the company. "This is a multi-national company that is far bigger financially than Afghanistan. It's like David and Goliath, only David doesn't have any laws or regulatory framework to help him."
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von Jon Boone (Kabul)
Article Link
The war-battered country might not be able to handle a huge but potentially lucrative deal.
The debris left over from previous attempts to extract some of Afghanistan's colossal mineral wealth can be found just 35km south-east of Kabul.
All that remains from Soviet attempts in the 1970s to assess one of the world's biggest copper reserves is exploratory drill holes. But in five years, if all goes to plan, the landscape in the Aynak exploration area will finally be changed into one of the world's largest opencast mines, thanks to a $3bn (Pfund1.5bn) investment by the China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC).
In November, the Chinese state-owned company beat eight other leading mining groups, including Phelps Dodge of the US, Hunter Dickinson of Canada and London-based Kazakhmys, to become the government's preferred bidder.
If contract negotiations are successfully concluded, MCC will have access to a reserve that, with copper prices running high, could be worth $42bn, according to one estimate.
By international standards, it is a huge project, involving the second-largest unexploited deposit in the world. By Afghan standards, it is gargantuan.
And therein lies both the potential reward and risk for a war-battered country that desperately needs the money such a deal could bring but which experts say is unprepared for regulating the sort of mega-projects that have caused social, political and economic catastrophes in other developing nations.
Lorenzo Delesgues, executive director of Integrity Watch Afghanistan, an independent research organisation that last month published a report on Aynak, says Afghanistan is not evenly matched with the company. "This is a multi-national company that is far bigger financially than Afghanistan. It's like David and Goliath, only David doesn't have any laws or regulatory framework to help him."
More on link
