Posted on 06/18/2010 5:06:28 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Afghan minerals may be triple original estimate: Mining Minister
17 June 2010, 1:28 p.m.
By Daniela Cambone
Of Kitco News www.kitco.com
Montreal -- (Kitco News) --Afghanistan's mining minister, said Thursday that mineral deposits in his country could be worth up to three trillion dollars, triple the US estimate from earlier this week.
"A very conservative estimate has been one trillion. Our estimation is more than that... the idea is it could be up to three trillion dollars," mining minister Waheedullah Shahrani told a news conference today in Kabul.
Kitco News interviewed Shahrani back in March on the sidelines of the PDAC in Toronto. He alluded to the fact that Afghanistan had the potential for huge iron-ore, copper and lithium deposits. The results of the US geological survey released this week confirmed Afghanistan had huge reserves of lithium, iron, copper, gold, and other minerals.
In an exclusive interview with Kitco News, Waheed Qaderi, Sahrawi’s advisor, said Thursday that the most prominent mineral in the find is iron-ore.
“The deposits are1.8 million metric tonnes in the Bamiyan area, it is the world’s largest untouched reserve,” he said. The production of more than 2 billion tons of iron ore in the relatively safe area of the country could begin in five to seven years, and possibly sooner, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at kitco.com ...
P!
when the big money comes in, that will be the end of the Taliban. What replaces them may not be something we like, either, but we won’t be dealing with 13th century goatherds with RPG’s any more.
The biggest problem for the Afghan people is no jobs, no education and they spend most of their time growing food.
Also, the Taliban have bigger and better guns. The people don’t trust outsiders. Their experience with the British and the Russians was not good. Why should they trust the Americans.
Read Sebastian Jungers new book “WAR”. It gives great insight into a frontline combat US army company. I just finished it. There is also a documentary out that he cooproduced that was recorded during his year in Afghanistan.
This discovery explains the sudden shift in Obama’s treatment of Karzai a couple of months ago.
No transportation, no ports, no law, no water to refine ores.
Minerals just don’t roll down to the sea. They reguire hundreds of millions of dollars in investment in a mine.
Nada.
Nothing.
Zip.
Might as well be on the moon. No one is going to touch them.
True value? Zero. Costs would exceed price. No free market capitalist pays for the privilege of losing money. Only government does that. Maybe the trains in Afghanistan can be run by Amtrac.
Besides, sooner or later, everything over there will be highly radioactive.....
I really have not seen any videos of the Afghan natives working on anything beyond their poppy fields.
Right. All they have is ore under the ground. Not sure when they allow mining companies to operate in Afghan.
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