Mining Think Tank of Afghanistan

Afghan newspapers regularly report Afghan governments' proclamations regarding the abundance of the country’s coal resources, but the resource numbers being reported by the government are unsupported by available data. Except for limited exploration drilling conducted by the China Metallurgical Group Corporation in 2009-2010, there has been no serious exploration for coal since the Soviet Technoexport effort during the 1960s and 70s, and therefore, no basis to modify resource estimates provided in the Technoexport studies.  Afghanistan’s coal mines are all artisanal and develop only where coal can be found exposed at the surface. Deeply buried coal accessible only by shaft remain unexplored and undeveloped. Artisanal coal mines are easily identified on satellite imagery. Analysis of imagery provided in Google Earth shows more than 6,000 coal mines operating in 37 Jurassic coal fields scattered across the country. Using imagery, it is possible to map the coal bed exposures by mapping the distribution of mines. Using coal thickness data gathered by Technoexport and earlier by the US Bureau of Mines, mine depth reported in the news, and coal exposure data from imagery, it is possible to calculate an estimate of original, hypothetical category, artisanally mineable Jurassic coal in place in Afghanistan. Resource calculations indicate that there was between 215 M tonnes and 430 M tonnes of original, artisanally accessible coal in place. Of this, somewhere between 51 M tonnes and 89 M tonnes have been extracted. Careless mining practices leading to premature mine closure due to roof collapse and spontaneous combustion have made countless millions, perhaps tens of millions of tonnes of coal unrecoverable. Mining is unregulated and unmapped. The intensity of development seen in imagery makes it clear that the shallow coal deposits have effectively been destroyed and can never be redeveloped using better mining practices.  A comprehensive analysis of the status of Afghanistan’s Jurassic coal mines can be downloaded at: https://lnkd.in/gDgfbbpv. Future reports in this series of industry analyses will consider the economic importance of coal mining to the Afghan economy and the current status of the country’s Carboniferous, Triassic, Oligocene, and Pliocene coal mines and Holocene peat deposits.

The govt needs to monitor well https://lnkd.in/eFAG2zFn

A new perspective: "It Is Not Permissible From A Shari'a Perspective To Hand Over Large And Strategic Mines To Private Companies"

A new transparency criterion has been set by Taliban officials!

Some important points about the deals with an illegitimate government.

“Afghanistan has jade but they’re having difficulty on the production end,” he said. “My (Chinese) customers invited me to Afghanistan to help develop the industry with the Taliban. I’m supposed to be there right now but there’s a few security issues so we had to postpone our trip.”

https://lnkd.in/dsXeVkff

Gary is a knowledgeable gem hunter who is quite familiar with the gemstones of Afghanistan and neighboring countries. Congrats to him for the his new exciting book.

Interesting article from corporate risk management point of view.

Days to die easy or easily die?