U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

[alienlovechild 75]

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

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

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.

While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.

Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.

The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just 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.

Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts. Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank, but it has never faced a serious challenge.

At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said.

Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection either. “The big question is, can this be developed in a responsible way, in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible?” Mr. Brinkley said. “No one knows how this will work.”

With virtually no mining industry or infrastructure in place today, it will take decades for Afghanistan to exploit its mineral wealth fully. “This is a country that has no mining culture,” said Jack Medlin, a geologist in the United States Geological Survey’s international affairs program. “They’ve had some small artisanal mines, but now there could be some very, very large mines that will require more than just a gold pan.”

The mineral deposits are scattered throughout the country, including in 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.

In 2004, American geologists, sent to Afghanistan as part of a broader reconstruction effort, stumbled across an intriguing series of old charts and data at the library of the Afghan Geological Survey in Kabul that hinted at major mineral deposits in the country. They soon learned that 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.

Armed with the old Russian charts, the United States Geological Survey began a series of aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in 2006, using advanced gravity and magnetic measuring equipment attached to an old Navy Orion P-3 aircraft that flew over about 70 percent of the country.

The data from those flights was so promising that in 2007, the geologists returned for an even more sophisticated study, using an old British bomber equipped with instruments that offered a three-dimensional profile of mineral deposits below the earth’s surface. It was the most comprehensive geologic survey of Afghanistan ever conducted.

But the results gathered dust for two more years, ignored by officials in both the American and Afghan governments. In 2009, a Pentagon task force that had created business development programs in Iraq was transferred to Afghanistan, and came upon the geological data. Until then, no one besides the geologists had bothered to look at the information — and no one had sought to translate the technical data to measure the potential economic value of the mineral deposits.

So far, the biggest mineral deposits discovered are of iron and copper, and the quantities are large enough to make Afghanistan a major world producer of both, United States officials said. 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.

Just this month, American geologists working with the Pentagon team have been conducting ground surveys on dry salt lakes in western Afghanistan where they believe there are large deposits of lithium. Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location in Ghazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large of those of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithium reserves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?pagewanted=2

[IndigoSkies 168]

And everyone thought the war was about catching some guy. Lol.

But on a serious note, if there are nationalistic Afghan who are patriotic, they could quite easily transform their country much like South America. The problem is however Afghanistan much like that whole area around there are made up of distinct ethnic groups that would sooner kill each other than do anything together. Therefore, I fully expect Afghans to remained poor, illiterate bastards as they really are for foreseeable future. While multinational companies take their riches for pennies on the dollar.

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

so this can be obama's war for minerals, like bush's war for oil?

[IndigoSkies 168]

So, this can be Obama's war for minerals like Bush's war for oil?

No. It's not really about about the oil or the mineral. It's about having American forces on the door steps of Pakistan, India, and China. To assume anything otherwise is short-sighted and probably wrong.

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

It makes one wonder why does America have a team of Pentagon officials and American geologists looking into this and coincidently reporting on it to the world? I think Charles you touch on something bigger. It doesn't matter who is President because the government already has special interests legs of it's own when they get into office. However, in Iraq, it's said we didn't take any oil well for ourselves in the bidding process. In Afghanistan if we can change the economics of a opium fields trade to a mining trade it may be for the best.

[IndigoSkies 168]

CIA involvement in the find and exploitation of the minerals will appears as though America really did got to Afghanistan for the minerals. When the war was starting up, I heard many people say that Afghanistan had a large quantities of plutinium hence the reason America decided to have a picnic there. So it could be Obama's war for minerals.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Start mining that gold! Bring the price down!

Like Afghanistan will even get a touch of the wealth from those minerals. Not going to happen one bit.

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

CIA involvement in the find and exploitation of the minerals will appears as though America really did got to Afghanistan for the minerals. When the war was starting up, I heard many people say that Afghanistan had a large quantities of plutinium hence the reason America decided to have a picnic there. So it could be Obama's war for minerals.

No. It's not really about about the oil or the mineral. It's about having American forces on the door steps of Pakistan, India, and China. To assume anything otherwise is short-sighted and probably wrong.

[Teacher Mark 53]

Thar's lithium in them thar' hills!

[IndigoSkies 168]

Well, I'm just positing how it could be construded as Obama's war for mineral. It's not my fault if I can see both side of the argument.

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

Well, I'm just positing how it could be construded as Obama's war for mineral. It's not my fault if I can see both side of the argument.

you wasn't around for the rants about "bush's war for oil" several years back - that's what i was referencing.