[Phlap]

“Discovered”? The spin never stops. In the 80’s I watched a NGS show on Afghanistan and it talked about the countries mineral and oil riches and the fact that firewood was the leading form of heat. Nothing has changed. It is a landlocked Godforsaken country and one hundred years from now it will still be a landlocked Godforsaken country.

[Recon Dad]

(In the Times story, undersecretary Brinkley also wonders, perfectly irrelevantly, whether the resources can be “be developed in a responsible way, in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible.”)

An Open Pit Mine would be an improvement in Afghanistan.

[Sicvee]

There are hundreds of mining projects in progress and exploration going on in friendly jurisdictions with various degrees of legal protection, and with feasible options for electrical power, transportation, and access to ports and smelters. It is unlikely that any of the big mining companies are going to invest in Afghanistan, which has none of these advantages, so there will be little incentive for exploration companies to do investigative drilling of potential ore bodies. Also the lack of a significant history of successful mining during the last 3000 years of nearby civilization would indicate that whatever ore is available would be of such low grade that it could only be accessed with huge open pit operations. I’m OK with that, but who will build the infrastructure to support it?