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Pakistan's Thar Desert holds beneath it trillions of dollars of proven - and untapped - coal reserves (Image credit: Travelpod)

Pakistan is an incredibly rich country when it comes to mineral wealth. There are numerous estimates of how significant our reserves of oil, gas, coal, metals, gold, marble and salt might be but one has to keep in mind that all such estimates are the result of limited surveys. Just the Thar coal reserves are known to pack more energy than the combined oil reserves of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Our Khewra salt mines are the world’s second largest, next to Canada’s gigantic Goderich mines. The amount of marble and onyx that is recovered from the mines in our northern areas is absolutely staggering. If only we had finer cutting and polishing industries our marble exports alone could generate a significantly higher level of foreign exchange.

In the past, there has been a great hesitance on the part of Pakistani governments to truly explore the country’s vast and untapped reserve of natural resources. Lately, however, I have been hearing at least the right sort of noises. For example, several power plants based on Thar coal extraction are about to come on line in the next couple of years. The investments in these facilities is in the $3.7B neighbourhood. They will tap a minutely small percentage of what the Thar reserves are capable of producing. Similarly, there has been a very promising development in Baluchistan, with the Army including 70,000 local Baluchi workers in a program to mine the mineral deposits at Chamalang and share the vast majority of the earnings with the local people, and to invest it in their development. Similarly, just a day or so ago, Salman Siddique, the Federal secretary of finance, announced that two companies – Chillian Tethyan Copper and Canada’s Barricks Gold - have agreed to invest $3.2B in the Baluchistan Rekodiq mines and develop infrastructure there.

This is encouraging! What must be ensured is complete transparency, which will hopefully reduce the chances of inefficiencies or graft creeping into the system. Here is a report from the Daily Times with more on the story:

Barricks, Tethyan to invest $3.2bn in copper, gold project

By Sajid Chaudhry

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s potential copper and gold deposit Reko Diq (Balochistan) has been able to attract a fresh investment to the tune of $3.2 billion by a joint venture comprising the world’s largest mining company Barricks Gold Corporation of Canada and Chillian Tethyan Copper Company.

Federal Secretary Finance Salman Siddique hosted a reception in honour of the President and Chief Executive of Barricks Gold Corporation of Canada, Aaron Regent which was attended by Federal Minister for Finance Dr Hafeez Shaikh, diplomats and senior government officials.

President and CEO of Barricks Gold Corporation of Canada, Aaron Regent speaking on the occasion said that the joint venture to develop the Riko Diq into a world class mine with transfer of technology and human resource development for the benefit of the province as well as for the economy of Pakistan.

He informed that development of Reko Diq would create around 11,000 job opportunities and the project operations would provide jobs to some 25, 000 to mainly locals as well as technical human resource.

TO continue reading, please visit The Daily Times

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