Ayaz Gul VOA News January 22, 2023 ISLAMABAD — Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have arrested five men, including two Chinese nationals, for allegedly trying to smuggle an estimated 1,000 metric tons of lithium-bearing rocks out of the country. The arrests and the seizure of the rocks were made in the eastern Afghan border city of Jalalabad.
8am: Speculations have mounted that China will seek dominance over Afghanistan’s mineral resources, particularly its lithium, gold and other rare-earth ore deposits, following the final US withdrawal from the country in August 2021. Local sources said on Thursday, January 12, that experts from two Chinese firms have visited Ghazni province for technical studies of lithium
LA Times: Jawed Noorani, an Afghan mining expert, estimated that the Taliban was collecting more than $1 billion a year in taxes on minerals. Mansfield said the regime has also doubled coal exports to Pakistan this year compared with the year before, taking advantage of a spike in prices because of the war in Ukraine.
Tolo News: The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said Sunday that Chinese companies have been scouting ways to access Afghanistan’s lithium and copper mines. According to SIGAR’s tweet, “Afghanistan’s lithium deposits could be among the largest in the world, rivaling those of Bolivia.” Click here to read more (external link).
8am: The Financial Times recently reported that Afghanistan’s lithium reserves could compete with those of other countries. Lithium, like oil, is rapidly becoming a strategic product, said Elif Nuroglu, head of economics at the University of Turkey-Germany (TAU). Click here to read more (external link).
Ariana: Officials representing several Chinese companies are in Afghanistan to conduct on-site inspections of potential lithium projects, Reuters reported. Afghanistan is rich in resources ranging from copper, lead, zinc, gold, oil and gas, bauxite, coal, iron ore and rare earths. It also has large reserves of lithium, a key component used for the batteries of
Press TV December 10, 2018 The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and following occupation by the United States was largely to protect the country’s opium cultivation and exploit its vast mineral resources, particularly the deposits of lithium, according to James Henry Fetzer, an American academic who has been studying the events of 9/11 since late 2001.
Tolo News: Ministry of Mines and Petroleum on Monday said they have terminated the extraction contract of Herat’s Ghoryan salt mine signed with a private company two months ago following the discovery of minerals including lithium and uranium. The spokesman for the ministry of mines Abdul Qadir Mutfi said their recent studies showed that these minerals
Press TV March 24, 2018 Afghanistan says Iran has asked to extract iron ore from a mine in Herat but the two neighbors have yet to reach an agreement on where to process it. Iran wants to transfer the extracted materials to an ore processing plant on its soil across the border but Afghanistan is
Tolo News: President Ashraf Ghani in a meeting with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the Presidential Palace on Thursday discussed Afghanistan’s security, peace and economy. The German president arrived in Kabul with a high ranking delegation on Thursday. Pointing to the importance of Afghanistan’s mineral resources, Ghani suggested that German automobile companies should use the country’s