TEHRAN: Iran wants to transfer the extracted materials to an ore processing plant on its soil across the border but Afghanistan is opposed to the idea.
“We have a policy based on which extracted mineral resources should be processed inside Afghanistan,” the broadcaster quoted her as saying.
The Sangan mine which Iran is interested to invest in is shared by the two countries but Tehran has already started tapping its part of the reserves.
Sangan has been branded as the “South Pars” of Iran’s steel industry, drawing a comparison with a giant gas reservoir that straddles the territorial waters of Iran and Qatar.
According to state mines and metals holding company IMIDRO chairman Mehdi Karbasian, of the 2.7 billion tonnes of iron ore reserves in Iran, one billion tonnes are in Sangan which has already used up $1 billion of investment to operate.
In 2015, Karbasian said five domestic consortia and another consortium comprised of two Chinese and four Iranian firms had undertaken to provide investment.
Some of the purchases for the project were made from Italian foundry equipment maker Danieli SpA before the Europeans intensified sanctions on Iran in 2011.
A United States Geological Survey study has estimated potential value of Afghanistan’s deposits as much as $1 trillion. However, latest geological studies by Afghan officials hint at figures three times larger.
Gold, silver and platinum are some of the precious elements identified in Afghanistan but the country has also been labeled as the potential “Saudi Arabia of lithium” thanks to deposits of the raw material used in phone and electric car batteries.
Furthermore, the country has significant quantities of iron ore, uranium, zinc, tantalum, bauxite, coal, natural gas and copper which is increasingly becoming rare across the globe.
Last August, Reuters said US President Donald Trump was eyeing Afghanistan’s mineral wealth to help pay for a 16-year war that have already cost $117 billion.
