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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/1 ... .html?scp=1&sq=U.S.%20Identifies%20Vast%20Riches%20of%20Minerals%20in%20Afghanistan&st=cse
U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan  Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
A bleak Ghazni Province seems to offer little, but aPentagon study says it may have among the world’s largest deposits oflithium.
By JAMES RISEN Published: June 13, 2010
WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan,far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentallyalter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, accordingto senior American government officials.
Minerals in Afghanistan
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 modernindustry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one ofthe most important mining centers in the world, the United Statesofficials believe.
An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan couldbecome the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in themanufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.
The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by asmall team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghangovernment and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.
While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, thepotential is so great that officials and executives in the industrybelieve it could attract heavy investment even before mines areprofitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract fromgenerations of war.
“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus,commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview onSaturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentiallyit is hugely significant.”
The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size ofAfghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largelyon opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from theUnited States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s grossdomestic product is only about $12 billion.
“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines.
American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveriesat a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan. The American-ledoffensive in Marja in southern Afghanistan has achieved only limitedgains. Meanwhile, charges of corruption and favoritism continue toplague the Karzai government, and Mr. Karzai seems increasinglyembittered toward the White House.
So the Obama administration is hungry for some positive news to comeout of Afghanistan. Yet the American officials also recognize that themineral discoveries will almost certainly have a double-edged impact.
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 couldalso be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful ofwell-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president,gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s ministerof mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 millionbribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. Theminister has since been replaced.
Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul andprovincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts. Afghanistanhas a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank, but it has never faced a serious challenge.
“No one has tested that law; no one knows how it will stand up in afight between the central government and the provinces,” observed Paul A. Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense for business and leader of the Pentagon team that discovered the deposits.
At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China willtry to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, whichcould upset the United States, given its heavy investment in theregion. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in LogarProvince, China clearly wants more, American officials said.
Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had muchheavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmentalprotection either. “The big question is, can this be developed in aresponsible way, in a way that is environmentally and sociallyresponsible?” Mr. Brinkley said. “No one knows how this will work.”
With virtually no mining industry or infrastructure in place today, itwill take decades for Afghanistan to exploit its mineral wealth fully.“This is a country that has no mining culture,” said Jack Medlin, ageologist in the United States Geological Survey’sinternational affairs program. “They’ve had some small artisanal mines,but now there could be some very, very large mines that will requiremore than just a gold pan.”
The mineral deposits are scattered throughout the country, including inthe southern and eastern regions along the border with Pakistan thathave had some of the most intense combat in the American-led waragainst the Taliban insurgency.
The Pentagon task force has already started trying to help the Afghansset up a system to deal with mineral development. Internationalaccounting firms that have expertise in mining contracts have beenhired to consult with the Afghan Ministry of Mines, and technical datais being prepared to turn over to multinational mining companies andother potential foreign investors. The Pentagon is helping Afghanofficials arrange to start seeking bids on mineral rights by next fall,officials said.
“The Ministry of Mines is not ready to handle this,” Mr. Brinkley said. “We are trying to help them get ready.”
Like much of the recent history of the country, the story of thediscovery of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is one of missedopportunities and the distractions of war.
In 2004, American geologists, sent to Afghanistan as part of a broaderreconstruction effort, stumbled across an intriguing series of oldcharts and data at the library of the Afghan Geological Survey in Kabulthat hinted at major mineral deposits in the country. They soon learnedthat the data had been collected by Soviet mining experts during theSoviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but cast aside when theSoviets withdrew in 1989.
During the chaos of the 1990s, when Afghanistan was mired in civil warand later ruled by the Taliban, a small group of Afghan geologistsprotected the charts by taking them home, and returned them to theGeological Survey’s library only after the American invasion and theouster of the Taliban in 2001.
“There were maps, but the development did not take place, because youhad 30 to 35 years of war,” said Ahmad Hujabre, an Afghan engineer whoworked for the Ministry of Mines in the 1970s.
Armed with the old Russian charts, the United States Geological Surveybegan a series of aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in2006, using advanced gravity and magnetic measuring equipment attachedto an old Navy Orion P-3 aircraft that flew over about 70 percent ofthe country.
The data from those flights was so promising that in 2007, thegeologists returned for an even more sophisticated study, using an oldBritish bomber equipped with instruments that offered athree-dimensional profile of mineral deposits below the earth’ssurface. It was the most comprehensive geologic survey of Afghanistanever conducted.
The handful of American geologists who pored over the new data said the results were astonishing.
But the results gathered dust for two more years, ignored by officialsin both the American and Afghan governments. In 2009, a Pentagon taskforce that had created business development programs in Iraq wastransferred to Afghanistan, and came upon the geological data. Untilthen, no one besides the geologists had bothered to look at theinformation — and no one had sought to translate the technical data tomeasure the potential economic value of the mineral deposits.
Soon, the Pentagon business development task force brought in teams ofAmerican mining experts to validate the survey’s findings, and thenbriefed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Karzai.
So far, the biggest mineral deposits discovered are of iron and copper,and the quantities are large enough to make Afghanistan a major worldproducer of both, United States officials said. Other finds includelarge deposits of niobium, a soft metal used in producingsuperconducting steel, rare earth elements and large gold deposits inPashtun areas of southern Afghanistan.
Just this month, American geologists working with the Pentagon teamhave been conducting ground surveys on dry salt lakes in westernAfghanistan where they believe there are large deposits of lithium.Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location inGhazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large ofthose of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithiumreserves.
For the geologists who are now scouring some of the most remotestretches of Afghanistan to complete the technical studies necessarybefore the international bidding process is begun, there is a growingsense that they are in the midst of one of the great discoveries oftheir careers.
“On the ground, it’s very, very, promising,” Mr. Medlin said. “Actually, it’s pretty amazing.” |
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