Afghanistan Riches
Posted on 15 June 2010 by LynThomas in Uncategorized
The U.S. has discovered nearly $1trillion in untapped mineral resources in Afghanistan, which could make Afghanistan richer than Brazil’s lithiam mines.
Afghanistan could be transformed into one of the most important mining centres in the world. Becoming the ‘Saudi Arabia of lithium’, a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys. Other finds include large deposits of niobium, a soft metal used in producing superconducting steel, rare earth elements and large gold deposits in Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan, huge veins of copper, iron and cobalt.
“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said. “It could take many years to develop a mining industry, but it could attract heavy investment.
The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists.
In 2004, American geologists stumbled across an intriguing series of old charts and data at the library of the Afghan Geological Survey in Kabul. The data had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but cast aside when the Soviets withdrew in 1989.
“There were maps, but the development did not take place, because you had 30 to 35 years of war,” said Ahmad Hujabre, an Afghan engineer who worked for the Ministry of Mines in the 1970s.
Armed with the old Russian charts, the U.S. Geological Survey began a series of aerial surveys in 2006, using advanced gravity and magnetic measuring equipment attached to an old Navy Orion P-3 aircraft that flew over 70% of the country.
In 2007 geologists returned to Afghanistan for a more sophisticated study, using an old British bomber equipped with instruments, which offered a three-dimensional profile of mineral deposits below the earth’s surface.
The results gathered dust for two more years, ignored by officials in both America and Afghanistan. In 2009, a Pentagon task force was transferred to Afghanistan and came upon the geological data.
Teams of American mining experts validated the survey’s finding and briefed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Karzai.
Afghan Women
Afghanistan’s economy is currently dependent on opium production and narcotics trafficking.
The mineral discovery has been revealed at a time when the American offensive has made little gain and charges of corruption and favoritism plague the Karzai government, which is increasingly embittered toward the White House.
The newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely, to regain control of the country.
A handful of well-connected powerful men, some with personal ties to the president, could gain control of the resources. Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts.
Last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.
After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said.
As Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection. Can the country be developed in a responsible way, that is environmentally and socially responsible?
The mineral deposits are scattered throughout the country, including the southern and eastern regions along the border with Pakistan, that have had some of the most intense combat in the American-led war, against the Taliban insurgency.
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