KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan said on Sunday it had discovered an oilfield with an estimated 1.8 billion barrels in the north of the war-ravaged country, where U.S. and other foreign forces are trying to tame a Taliban-led insurgency.
The discovery of the basin between northern Balkh and Shiberghan provinces was made after a survey conducted by Afghan and international geologists, said Jawad Omar, a spokesman for the ministry of mines.
"I do not know its price in the market. But the initial survey says there are 1.8 billion barrels of oil and I think there will be more than what it is estimated," he told Reuters.
Various estimates of Afghanistan's hidden wealth have been made in recent years, but the challenge of exploiting the resources in a country at war and with little mining infrastructure is daunting for most investors.
Omar gave no more details on how the estimates were made but said the country will offer the reserves for development along with other minerals in the coming months.
Afghanistan hopes that untapped mineral deposits valued at $3 trillion could help reduce the need to rely on Western cash for bankrolling its impoverished economy and for its soldiers to maintain security when foreign troops draw down numbers.
But ravaged by three decades of foreign interventions and civil war, the central government now faces the Taliban insurgency and relies on foreign forces for control of many parts of the vast Central Asian country.
The U.S. Department of Defense estimated earlier this year that Afghanistan's mineral resources could top $1 trillion, but experts say the fragile security situation could delay seeing the benefits of this wealth for years.
Omar said an earlier plan for the tender of a 1.6 billion barrel Afghan-Tajik oil block in early 2011 was still on track.
He said Afghanistan will retender by year-end a deposit of iron of 1.8 billion tonnes it had scrapped earlier this year due to the global recession and changes in the world markets.
The untapped mineral resources include iron ore, copper, lithium, oil gas and gems which Afghanistan hopes to put for developing in coming years despite rising insecurity in recent years, the bloodiest period since U.S.-led troops ousted the Taliban in 2001.
China's top integrated copper producer, Jiangxi Copper Co and China Metallurgical Group Corp, in 2007 became the first major investor in Afghanistan.
They are involved in the exploration of the vast multi-billion dollar Aynak Copper Mine to the south of Kabul. Omar said the actual exploration of the mine will start after three years.
(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin, editing by Andrew Hammond and Sanjeev Miglani)
So, ladies and gentlemen, what do you think this portents for Afghanistan? Personally, I'm not optimistic. I think that it'll just line the pockets of whatever tribal gang ends up running the place.
While not small, 1.8 billion isn't that big either. And between the terrain, lack of established infrastructure, and endemic problems, I don't see it (or any other resources) being developed anytime soon. And if anything is developed, the wealth will just go the way wealth does in Saudi Arabia.
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This is big. This is oil field is not in the remote mountain wastes of Afghanistan, its in the north and fairly close to both the railroad spurs that enter the country and in terrain that is decently suited to mechanized operations. One of those rail spurs is being extended 47 miles to Mazar I Sharif as we speak, and no point in the named Afghan provinces is more then 100 miles from that city, short enough to do a round trip for heavy trucks without refueling. Shit gets expensive when you have to run other trucks to refuel the haul trucks. That means major development at a sane cost and with sane security requirements is well within reason. Oil is much more lucrative then metal ore extraction too, the extraction operations are more easily scaled up and down while maintaining profitability as well as having a more stable high price. Stuff like copper has radical price swings all the time, while oil is never likely to go below 50-60 dollars a barrel again.
Now as for who will get the money, I don’t know, but the fact is even the money lining the pockets of a few people is still way better then having nothing and no options at all.
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As Dubai indicates, option 1 & 2 are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
I don't hold many hopes for Afghanistan but there are more and more stories about vast resource discoveries that might point to a better future, at least potentially.
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Sea Skimmer wrote:This is big. This is oil field is not in the remote mountain wastes of Afghanistan, its in the north and fairly close to both the railroad spurs that enter the country and in terrain that is decently suited to mechanized operations. One of those rail spurs is being extended 47 miles to Mazar I Sharif as we speak, and no point in the named Afghan provinces is more then 100 miles from that city, short enough to do a round trip for heavy trucks without refueling.
Based on the world's daily rate of oil consumption, this oil field buys us another twenty one days at current levels. Oh joy.
If the US gets greedy and hoardes all it for itself, they can manage to make the supply last almost three months. Oh joy.
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"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
1) Multinationals end up owning the oil fields, which are worked by Afghanis who see virtually none of the returns for the field, as Karzai and gang lines their pockets.
2) Conditions get bad enough that it generates a charismatic politician who gets democratically elected and leads Afghanistan to nationalize its oil industry so that the local population gets more of a cut of the returns on their oil.
3) Multinationals complain and said charismatic politician gets ousted in a US backed coup to be replaced with a reasonably hated dictator that enforces the multinationals in exchange for arms/money.
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Gil Hamilton wrote:Based on history, the next three steps are:
1) Multinationals end up owning the oil fields, which are worked by Afghanis who see virtually none of the returns for the field, as Karzai and gang lines their pockets.
2) Conditions get bad enough that it generates a charismatic politician who gets democratically elected and leads Afghanistan to nationalize its oil industry so that the local population gets more of a cut of the returns on their oil.
3) Multinationals complain and said charismatic politician gets ousted in a US backed coup to be replaced with a reasonably hated dictator that enforces the multinationals in exchange for arms/money.
You forgot about the particular Afgan twist to this scenario: 4) in a country in which tribal and guerrilla warfare have been the entertainment option of choice for millenia, the puppet dictator remains secure behind a screen of foreign tanks while the country explodes into the latest round of the Afgan National Sport, and the occupation/puppet governmental forces are slowly bled white while not a single drop of oil ever gets extracted or shipped due to continual sabotage which the Infidels™ find themselves unable to cope with.
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Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
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I'm gonna reiterate; How is that convenient? Do you think a ficticious oilfield was manufactured in the zone of conflict to keep America there, or do you think that Afghani infrastructure was developed to this oilfield which was known about in secret but not disclosed until now?
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Of course it's convenient. It's just not suspicious, because any assumption that could be drawn from such a suspicion is just plain ludicrous and/or idiotic.
But if you want an explanation, then consider that the Taliban were hardly good at searching for oil (and maybe did not do it at all), and that any search teams today are much more likely to start in a well-developed region.
Either way, i hope this doesn't destablize the region and that the afghans can profit from it. I know it's unlikely, but i still hope for it.
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I'm gonna reiterate; How is that convenient? Do you think a ficticious oilfield was manufactured in the zone of conflict to keep America there, or do you think that Afghani infrastructure was developed to this oilfield which was known about in secret but not disclosed until now?
What? It sounded like a good word to use at the time...
