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Afghan 'Geological Reserves Worth a Trillion Dollars'
Karzai exclaims 'very good news for Afghans', but perhaps history tells us that regular Afghans should be very cautious of such news
KABUL - Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, is sitting on mineral and petroleum reserves worth an estimated one trillion dollars, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.
Miners work in the Anyak copper mine in Afghanistan. While Afghanistan is not renowned as a resource-rich country, it has a wide range of deposits, including copper, iron ore, gold and chromite, as well as natural gas, oil and precious and semi-precious stones. (Afghan Government photo) The war-ravaged nation could become one of the richest in the world if helped to tap its geological deposits, Karzai told reporters.
"I have very good news for Afghans," Karzai said.
"The initial figures we have obtained show that our mineral deposits are worth a thousand billion dollars -- not a thousand million dollars but a thousand billion," he said.
He based his assertion, he said, on a survey being carried out by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), due to be completed in "a couple of months".
The USGS, the US government's scientific agency, has been working on the 17-million dollar survey for a number of years, Karzai said.
While Afghanistan is not renowned as a resource-rich country, it has a wide range of deposits, including copper, iron ore, gold and chromite, as well as natural gas, oil and precious and semi-precious stones.
Little has been exploited because the country has been mired in conflict for 30 years, and is embroiled in a vicious insurgency by Islamist rebels led by the Taliban.
More than 100,000 foreign troops under US and NATO command are battling the insurgents, with another 40,000 due for deployment this year.
China and India have bid for contracts to develop mines, with the Chinese winning a copper contract. An iron ore contract is due to be awarded later this year.
In 2007, China's state-owned metals giant Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) signed a three-billion-dollar contract to develop the Aynak copper mine -- one of the world's biggest -- over the next 30 years.
First discovered in 1974, the site, 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Kabul in Logar, is estimated to contain 11.3 million tonnes of copper.
The Hajigak iron ore mine in Bamiyan province, north of Kabul, is currently under tender, with one Chinese and half a dozen Indian firms bidding.
The contract is for exploitation of almost two billion tonnes of high-grade ore, involving processing, smelting, steel production and electricity production.
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32 Comments so far
Show Alli thought imperialists were supposed to make money off their wars. can we do anything right?
Read the article, read all the posts and thought I may have missed something by the tone of the other posts until I got to yours. I had the same take as you. And the answer to your question seems to be no, and I'm still laughing.
Early on in Bush's first term there were suspicions and some documents circulating afterword that pointed to Chaney's ETF and a pipeline project. I can believe that Deadly Dick would be so single-mindedly obsessed that he would have missed the real mineral value there, and that just reinforces the irony.
Oil's well that ends well.
Wow, Afghanistan is worth something, imagine that!
Too bad the current residents don't do something with it, you know the world needs cheap copper!
Labor is cheap in Afghanistan, so I imagine U.S. companies are lined up too.
If only the people of Afghanistan had a say, if only the people of the U.S. had a say... how their resources are being stolen.
Now all they need to do is eradicate those pesky Afghanis; no point in offering to buy anything when you can kill millions and just wallow around in their blood and misery.
No point in sharing the wealth with the inhabitants: everyone knows that the dues at the country clubs all over the US are going up almost as fast as the children of privilege can steal enough stuff to pay for the new raise on dues.
If we pull out, will the chinese supply 'stability'? hmmm...
I wish the Afghanis good luck. They'll need it. Most undeveloped countries with mineral wealth end up with most of the benefits going to foreign corporations and the local oligarchs. Very seldom have the people reaped real benefits.
Jim Shea
" I have very good news for Afghans". Karzi. That is very bad news from the U.S. puppet Karzi. As a former board member of big oil, what he means is this is very good news for his puppet masters!
What about the people of Afghanistan mining and developing these resources themselves and administer the program for the benefit of their own people? Okay stop laughing, I can dream.
EXCUSE ME!!! The USGS has been there working on it for a number of years???
People, connect the dots. Resources looked into by us, US,??? so we can go to war and STEAL their stuff and yes, continue to kill off as many as possible...lets remember what those pricks did in AVATAR, the movie about the truth of imperialists. It's the same damn thing. It's Columbia, Iraq. You got stuff. We want your stuff. We kill you to get it. We sneak in in the name of science. We lie to make you think we good guys. But we kill you cause we want your stuff. Corrupted m.f. a-holes.
And we are letting them get away with it by not marching on DC and every capitol in the world every stinkin day. There should be millions of us shutting down DC. We will be the target one day, and not some fluff pop like 911, because we are complicit with the government that is doing this imperial swan dive to hell.
bingo. If the mineral resources are a tenth as lucrative as our puppet in Kabul is claiming, then the killings in Afghanistan haven't even started yet. Models: Angola, Mozambique, Nigeria, Colombia, Guatemala, etc. etc. etc. . . . and, of course, Iraq.
If you check the Avatar comments on yahoo/movies it's amazing. Sort by negative reviews of Avatar and you can just feel the hatred..
This could replace the poppy industry. The problem, as Define Freedom says, is to mine the wealth for the benefit of the Afghan people, not for some international mining cartel. Historically any leader who wants to bring democracy and use national resources for the benefit of his or her own people becomes a target for the CIA in cahoots with the local kleptocratic class.
Joe
Bamiyan home of the underdog but beautiful Hazzari people, has one of the Natural Wonders of the world Bandi Amir , five large bottomless crystal blue lakes in a Canyon at 11,000 feet that flow into each other through waterfalls and surrounded by a huge almost barren plateau and a circle of mountain peaks.
I hope this beautiful unique area is not destroyed by mining and smelting.
I myself and most people who live on site would much rather have poppies ( not heroin) than mining.
It seems to me the USA could withdraw and China, India, Pakistan and Iran would help to stabilize the nation just to serve their own interests.
The USA is surging ( because the Taliban and Karzai have been suing for a Peace Conference for years),in order to:
1) Retain a post peace control of the TAPI pipeline
2) Position troops on Irans eastern border.
3) Slow China's influence
4) Obomber is afraid of the domestic criticism accompanying a pre election withdrawal.
This AFP is as bad as the AP --
"vicious Islamist insurgency"
no
Pastun resistence militia facilitated by the Taliban organization.
are the invaders really
"gentle secular do gooders"?
O.K., how do we get it? War.
Ahhh! So now I understand why we are fighting to bring democracy and skimpy fashions to Afghanistan.
Finally our concern for the Afghan people makes sense, but it will be lost on them.
I suppose the U.S. is in Afghanistan to stabilize what might otherwise be its shaky mineral and petroleum wealth. And that wealth would become unstable if the Chinese took an interest in it.
A trillion dollars you say? Well, I guess the troops will be there for some time to come.
This is not the first resource war the USA has fought.
In some sense the international wars of the USA have all been resource wars.
We all know WW2 was about some resource, it had nothing to do with America not wanting to trade with nations with inhuman militant policies.
Korea too, when a tyrant invades another nation unprovoked, thats a resource war.
First Iraq war, we all know Iraq had just cause to invade there oil rich neighbor.
I love how you libs like to demonize America, keep in mind this nation over the last 100 years or so has stood for opportunity and hope for billions of people.
Just since GW did his best to destroy our image , we still have a proud history.
acutenecrotizingfasciitus
Proud history of slavery & genocide. Hell, even Abraham Lincoln signed off on the largest mass hanging in U.S. history; 63 members of the indigenous people were hanged in one day. It's rather disgusting when the ignorant stand proud for nothing.
Gee, I wonder why the New York Times didn't write about this?
A number of African countries sit on vast mineral wealth. Nigeria has great oil reserves, and look at how wealthy the Nigerian people are. African countries sit on deposits of gold, but many men work at slave wages to haul the ore out and smuggle it across a border for sale. Other serfs dig diamonds. One African country has a mountain of copper ore.
The people still are hungry.
Afghan 'Geological Reserves Worth a Trillion Dollars' and America's masters will spend three trillion tax dollars to get it. Heckuva job!
Reasons for war--follow the money.
We don't need to plunder any more of the earth. Nobody needs Afghanistan's natural resources. As usual, the USans are up to no good, sending "geological surveys" into Afghanistan, when nobody needs the resources. Take a look at how much of these resources end up in landfills. 40% of aluminum is just one example. The "American Way" will have in a few decades fully depleted many natural resources and the inevitable mining of the landfills will commence. Elites will grow richer from that racket.
Keep the Western leeches out!
Nobody seems to be noticing that just as in Iraq, all these resources are going to China and other foreign intrests. If American multinationals are involved they are getting into the game late. Such as in the bidding to develop untapped Iraqi oil fields.
So is this what is to become of the U.S.? Are we to be the strong arm enforcer and procurement outlet for the undeveloped resources of third world nations for China, India, Japan and Europe? Remeber the words of Ronald Reagan, that America was no longer going to be a manufacturing economy, that we would be a service economy! And everybody thought he meant Information Technology!
"So is this what is to become of the U.S.? Are we to be the strong arm enforcer and procurement outlet for the undeveloped resources of third world nations for China, India, Japan and Europe?"
Yup. It'll be just like that stupid movie, "Starship Troopers." While Casper VanDien (America) is busting his a$$ fighting bugs, Doogie Howser (Asia) moves in on the babe (Afghanistan/Iraq).
WAKE UP TO THE REALITY PEOPLE
"Oil and Natural Gas Resources Assessment. A nationwide oil and gas resources assessment was initiated by USGS in Spring 2003 with funding from the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (TDA). This 24-month activity should be completed in early 2005, and will dovetail with two projects that are being funded by the World Bank. These World Bank projects are for engineering assessments of the oil and gas reserves in existing fields and for an assessment of the fertilizer, sulfur, and power plants associated with natural gas production in the northern oil and gas basins of Afghanistan. The completion of these projects should be near the end of 2004. The USGS project calls for a Quantitative assessment of the northern basins and a Qualitative assessment of the southern basins (Katawaz and Helmand)."
Helmland is where Marja is, check your USGS site and read more.
"Petroleum Law. The writing and discussion of a modern Afghanistan Petroleum law have been ongoing for more than two years. This law, when enacted, will serve to level the playing field for all interested foreign investors in the oil and gas sector and will provide for transparency in the management of this critical energy sector of the country. Basically, it will lay out the Afghanistan Government's leasing process for foreign investors. The World Bank is funding this activity; government approval of the new law is expected by the end of calendar year 2004. USGS serves a consulting role in this activity." And as with all government projects, it takes much longer than previously outlined, so we are still there doing what we intend to do, use their resources for our corporate/aka WB benefits.
Emeralds!!! Wow.
If you have any interest in finding out more...
C. J. Wandrey
Project Chief, Oil and Gas Resource Assessment of Afghanistan
MS 939, DFC
Denver, CO 80225
Voice: (303) 236-5341
Email: cwandrey@usgs.gov
or
http://afghanistan.cr.usgs.gov/oil.php
and so much more.....
USA: Hey China, if you'll front me 800 billion for Iraq, I'll pay you back with Afghanistan; that's a 200 billion profit, whadda ya say?
CHINA: You got deal imperialist running dog!
Problem is, America isn't going to win anything in Afghanistan...