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China Pursues Afghanistan's Mineral Wealth After U.S. Exit - Chinese company is negotiating with Taliban to mine one of world's largest untapped reserves of copper
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Ubiquitous
Mar 16, 2022, 11:31:27 AM3/16/22
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MES AYNAK, Afghanistan - Following the American exit from Afghanistan,
China’s move to claim the country’s vast mineral wealth is centered on a
mountain south of Kabul.
The mountain and the barren surrounding valley, in Logar province, a two-hour
drive from the capital, contain one of the world’s biggest untapped reserves
of copper.
China is negotiating with Taliban authorities to start mining at the site,
called Mes Aynak, according to Chinese and Taliban officials. Beijing is also
in talks to begin work on oil-and-gas reserves in the north of the country,
Amu Darya. Both projects were on hold for years because of the war, which
ended when the Taliban seized power in August.
Dozens of Chinese mining companies have descended on Kabul in recent weeks
seeking contracts for other mines.
U.S. officials say they are concerned that China will fill the vacuum left by
the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Beijing developed a relationship
with the Taliban in recent years and kept its Kabul embassy functioning when
Western missions fled the Taliban takeover.
Iran, another U.S. rival, is in talks to secure a huge iron ore deposit in
the west of the country. Tehran, too, has fostered good ties with the
Taliban.
Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries, but its mountainous
geology contains huge riches: gold, precious stones, coal, oil and gas,
lithium, and rare-earth minerals. China already controls most of the world’s
rare-earth minerals, which are used to manufacture a variety of technologies,
including components in electric vehicles and smartphone touch screens.
American experts a decade ago estimated the value of Afghanistan’s mineral
resources at $1 trillion. While the U.S. deployed tens of thousands of troops
there and spent hundreds of billions of dollars, it was never able to unlock
this bounty.
“The rest of the world have extracted their mines and have used them for
their countries’ development while we were engaged in war for 43 years and,
hence, our resources have remained untouched,” said the Taliban’s minister
for minerals and petroleum, Shahabuddin Dilawar.
Mr. Dilawar said he wants American and other Western companies to also come
to Afghanistan now that the American military presence is gone. He said he
would prefer American mining companies over Chinese companies because of
their expertise.
With commodities in a bullish cycle that could keep prices buoyant for years
and the end to fighting between U.S. forces and the Taliban, the time might
be right for mining in Afghanistan, according to analysts.
Neal Rigby, a mining consultant who formerly advised the Pentagon and the
Afghan government on Afghanistan’s mining assets, said the world is facing a
shortage of copper.
“Hence the importance of Afghanistan and its minerals endowment,” Mr. Rigby
said. “If you look around the world, everywhere has been explored to hell.
But Afghanistan is wide open.”
Mining looks like the Taliban’s best chance of creating big new business
activity as it grapples with the economic collapse that was triggered by
their takeover. The new government, which has been cut off from international
aid, needs to raise revenue fast and provide jobs for a population facing
mass starvation.
Yet for Western companies, U.S. and international sanctions on the Taliban
mean that dealing with Afghanistan is risky, while environmental and human-
rights standards and security concerns also loom large.
Mr. Rigby said Mes Aynak held the highest-grade copper, which is why China
wanted it so badly—to ship home and blend with its own lower-grade copper.
He said that Mes Aynak was a world-class reserve but that there are likely
more such deposits to be found in what is believed to be a central
Afghanistan copper belt.
The copper has one big complication: It sits under the ruins of a vast
ancient city, Mes Aynak, dating back about 2,000 years. Mes Aynak was a grand
outpost of a Buddhist civilization that thrived in Afghanistan and what is
now northwestern Pakistan centuries before Islam rose.
Mes Aynak flourished between the first and seventh centuries. There are
Buddhist monasteries, stupas, graveyards and wall paintings. The eastern
flank of the mountain is covered with antique structures that formed the
city.
Mr. Dilawar said that the antiquities would be protected but that authorities
hadn’t decided how. His preference would be to move the whole city to
somewhere nearby and reconstruct it. Many prize artifacts have been shifted
to the Kabul Museum.
Noor Agha Noori, who served as Afghanistan’s director of archaeology until
the Taliban takeover, when he left the country, said excavation of the site
was about 70% complete after a decade of work on it. “No mining should be
done until the excavation is finished,” he said.
He said that if the Chinese were prepared to mine underground through
tunnels, which would enable the city ruins to remain where they are, it would
take at least three more years of archaeological excavation before mining
could begin.
If the Chinese plan to do open-pit mining, which means digging from the
surface, eating up the whole mountain, seven to 10 years would be needed to
document and move the ancient remains. Under that scenario, more than half of
the antiquities would be lost and the archaeological integrity of the site
gone, he said, because it isn’t possible to relocate everything.
There is also copper in the valley adjacent to the mountain, which doesn’t
have ancient ruins on it.
China’s state-owned mining company Metallurgical Corp. of China, which was
awarded the contract for Mes Aynak in 2007 by the then-U.S.-backed government
in Kabul, didn’t respond to a request for comment. After it won the contract,
mining never began because of the scale of the antiquities discovered, the
war and disagreements over terms with the Afghan government.
The mining minister said the contract required China to build a power plant
that would supply energy to the site, surrounding area and Kabul; process the
copper in Afghanistan; construct a railway to the Pakistani border at
Torkham; transfer the antiquities; and buy land from villagers.
The Chinese company has tried to back out of all those obligations, he said.
“We want them to stand by their commitments. We’re committed to ours as
well,” Mr. Dilawar said. “We have given two projects to the Chinese, and we
may not give them a third until we see practical actions in those two.”
China’s ambassador in Kabul, Wang Yu, confirmed that talks were going on over
the Mes Aynak copper mine and the Amu Darya oil and gas project in the north.
He, however, said that better terms were needed to make the investment
worthwhile for the Chinese. “It is very important that both parties have
reasonable returns,” Mr. Wang said.
State-owned China National Petroleum Corp., which never developed the three
exploratory blocks in the Amu Darya basin that it was awarded by the Afghan
government in 2011, didn’t respond to a request for comment. The basin,
centered in neighboring Turkmenistan, is the most abundant hydrocarbon
resource in Central Asia and a mainstay of Turkmenistan’s economy.
The Mining Ministry, unlike some of the other departments taken over by the
Taliban, is busy, with businessmen regularly turning up in a flurry of SUVs.
The ministry has signed contracts on some new small-scale mines, the minister
said.
Entrepreneurs have come calling to discuss mining the lithium and rare-earth
deposits, which are considered to be the big prize in Afghanistan, but the
mining minister said those wouldn’t be tendered yet.
“Given China’s stranglehold on the global rare-earths market—and the West’s
commitment in blood and treasure to Afghanistan—allowing China to stroll in
and harvest Afghanistan’s rare-earth riches seems both unwise and unfair,”
said Alan Dowd, senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank.
--
Let's go Brandon!
China’s move to claim the country’s vast mineral wealth is centered on a
mountain south of Kabul.
The mountain and the barren surrounding valley, in Logar province, a two-hour
drive from the capital, contain one of the world’s biggest untapped reserves
of copper.
China is negotiating with Taliban authorities to start mining at the site,
called Mes Aynak, according to Chinese and Taliban officials. Beijing is also
in talks to begin work on oil-and-gas reserves in the north of the country,
Amu Darya. Both projects were on hold for years because of the war, which
ended when the Taliban seized power in August.
Dozens of Chinese mining companies have descended on Kabul in recent weeks
seeking contracts for other mines.
U.S. officials say they are concerned that China will fill the vacuum left by
the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Beijing developed a relationship
with the Taliban in recent years and kept its Kabul embassy functioning when
Western missions fled the Taliban takeover.
Iran, another U.S. rival, is in talks to secure a huge iron ore deposit in
the west of the country. Tehran, too, has fostered good ties with the
Taliban.
Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries, but its mountainous
geology contains huge riches: gold, precious stones, coal, oil and gas,
lithium, and rare-earth minerals. China already controls most of the world’s
rare-earth minerals, which are used to manufacture a variety of technologies,
including components in electric vehicles and smartphone touch screens.
American experts a decade ago estimated the value of Afghanistan’s mineral
resources at $1 trillion. While the U.S. deployed tens of thousands of troops
there and spent hundreds of billions of dollars, it was never able to unlock
this bounty.
“The rest of the world have extracted their mines and have used them for
their countries’ development while we were engaged in war for 43 years and,
hence, our resources have remained untouched,” said the Taliban’s minister
for minerals and petroleum, Shahabuddin Dilawar.
Mr. Dilawar said he wants American and other Western companies to also come
to Afghanistan now that the American military presence is gone. He said he
would prefer American mining companies over Chinese companies because of
their expertise.
With commodities in a bullish cycle that could keep prices buoyant for years
and the end to fighting between U.S. forces and the Taliban, the time might
be right for mining in Afghanistan, according to analysts.
Neal Rigby, a mining consultant who formerly advised the Pentagon and the
Afghan government on Afghanistan’s mining assets, said the world is facing a
shortage of copper.
“Hence the importance of Afghanistan and its minerals endowment,” Mr. Rigby
said. “If you look around the world, everywhere has been explored to hell.
But Afghanistan is wide open.”
Mining looks like the Taliban’s best chance of creating big new business
activity as it grapples with the economic collapse that was triggered by
their takeover. The new government, which has been cut off from international
aid, needs to raise revenue fast and provide jobs for a population facing
mass starvation.
Yet for Western companies, U.S. and international sanctions on the Taliban
mean that dealing with Afghanistan is risky, while environmental and human-
rights standards and security concerns also loom large.
Mr. Rigby said Mes Aynak held the highest-grade copper, which is why China
wanted it so badly—to ship home and blend with its own lower-grade copper.
He said that Mes Aynak was a world-class reserve but that there are likely
more such deposits to be found in what is believed to be a central
Afghanistan copper belt.
The copper has one big complication: It sits under the ruins of a vast
ancient city, Mes Aynak, dating back about 2,000 years. Mes Aynak was a grand
outpost of a Buddhist civilization that thrived in Afghanistan and what is
now northwestern Pakistan centuries before Islam rose.
Mes Aynak flourished between the first and seventh centuries. There are
Buddhist monasteries, stupas, graveyards and wall paintings. The eastern
flank of the mountain is covered with antique structures that formed the
city.
Mr. Dilawar said that the antiquities would be protected but that authorities
hadn’t decided how. His preference would be to move the whole city to
somewhere nearby and reconstruct it. Many prize artifacts have been shifted
to the Kabul Museum.
Noor Agha Noori, who served as Afghanistan’s director of archaeology until
the Taliban takeover, when he left the country, said excavation of the site
was about 70% complete after a decade of work on it. “No mining should be
done until the excavation is finished,” he said.
He said that if the Chinese were prepared to mine underground through
tunnels, which would enable the city ruins to remain where they are, it would
take at least three more years of archaeological excavation before mining
could begin.
If the Chinese plan to do open-pit mining, which means digging from the
surface, eating up the whole mountain, seven to 10 years would be needed to
document and move the ancient remains. Under that scenario, more than half of
the antiquities would be lost and the archaeological integrity of the site
gone, he said, because it isn’t possible to relocate everything.
There is also copper in the valley adjacent to the mountain, which doesn’t
have ancient ruins on it.
China’s state-owned mining company Metallurgical Corp. of China, which was
awarded the contract for Mes Aynak in 2007 by the then-U.S.-backed government
in Kabul, didn’t respond to a request for comment. After it won the contract,
mining never began because of the scale of the antiquities discovered, the
war and disagreements over terms with the Afghan government.
The mining minister said the contract required China to build a power plant
that would supply energy to the site, surrounding area and Kabul; process the
copper in Afghanistan; construct a railway to the Pakistani border at
Torkham; transfer the antiquities; and buy land from villagers.
The Chinese company has tried to back out of all those obligations, he said.
“We want them to stand by their commitments. We’re committed to ours as
well,” Mr. Dilawar said. “We have given two projects to the Chinese, and we
may not give them a third until we see practical actions in those two.”
China’s ambassador in Kabul, Wang Yu, confirmed that talks were going on over
the Mes Aynak copper mine and the Amu Darya oil and gas project in the north.
He, however, said that better terms were needed to make the investment
worthwhile for the Chinese. “It is very important that both parties have
reasonable returns,” Mr. Wang said.
State-owned China National Petroleum Corp., which never developed the three
exploratory blocks in the Amu Darya basin that it was awarded by the Afghan
government in 2011, didn’t respond to a request for comment. The basin,
centered in neighboring Turkmenistan, is the most abundant hydrocarbon
resource in Central Asia and a mainstay of Turkmenistan’s economy.
The Mining Ministry, unlike some of the other departments taken over by the
Taliban, is busy, with businessmen regularly turning up in a flurry of SUVs.
The ministry has signed contracts on some new small-scale mines, the minister
said.
Entrepreneurs have come calling to discuss mining the lithium and rare-earth
deposits, which are considered to be the big prize in Afghanistan, but the
mining minister said those wouldn’t be tendered yet.
“Given China’s stranglehold on the global rare-earths market—and the West’s
commitment in blood and treasure to Afghanistan—allowing China to stroll in
and harvest Afghanistan’s rare-earth riches seems both unwise and unfair,”
said Alan Dowd, senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank.
--
Let's go Brandon!
BeamMeUpScotty
Mar 16, 2022, 11:45:07 AM3/16/22
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-That's Karma-
*IF YOU'RE READING THIS YOU ARE A SURVIVOR*
*The first rule of SURVIVAL CLUB* is we talk about it, we hate
censorship. Never trust what Democrats or Marxists tell you. Make them
prove it with actual verifiable facts and science. And if you didn't
find the duplicitous lies in what the Marxist-Democrats told you then
you didn't dig deep enough. The *Gruber* *Doctrine* is the
Marxist-Democrat plan that says it's "to the Democrats advantage to have
a lack of transparency and then lie about everything".
https://rumble.com/vkt8ld-call-it-the-stupidity-of-the-american-voter-or-whatever.-how-libs-exploit-t.html
*The next rule of SURVIVAL CLUB* is
114 - There is no rational reason for a midget to wrestle with a pig in
the mud.
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