Pakistan’s Mineral Gambit: Leveraging Resources to Reshape U.S. Ties? – Quwa

The cornerstone of Pakistan’s pitch to worldwide buyers is the assertion of huge, untapped mineral wealth. Official narratives, amplified throughout occasions like PMIF25 and in briefings to the federal cupboard, continuously cite staggering estimates of the nation’s whole mineral reserves, just lately escalating from $6 trillion to as excessive as $8 trillion. 

This narrative frames minerals – encompassing sources like copper, gold, lithium, uncommon earth parts (REEs), coal, and salt – as the important thing to unlocking nationwide financial transformation and attaining self-sufficiency. 

The federal government, significantly by way of the civil-military Particular Funding Facilitation Council (SIFC) established in 2023, is actively selling this imaginative and prescient to draw the international direct funding deemed obligatory to use these sources.

Nonetheless, a essential examination reveals a big disparity between these bold headline figures and extra verifiable, project-specific valuations. 

The Reko Diq copper-and-gold challenge within the Chagai district of Balochistan stays the undisputed flagship asset and the first tangible proof supporting claims of world-class mineral potential. 

An up to date feasibility examine, finalized in early 2025, supplies concrete estimates for this particular challenge: recoverable reserves are projected at 13.1 million tonnes of copper and 17.9 million ounces of gold over an anticipated mine lifetime of 37 years. 

Primarily based on excessive steel costs prevailing in March 2025, the in-ground worth of those particular Reko Diq reserves was calculated by one analyst group at roughly $215 billion. 

Different metrics provide completely different views: Barrick Gold CEO Mark Bristow, head of the challenge’s 50% proprietor/operator, publicly cited an preliminary estimated challenge worth of $70 billion, with potential to double, whereas different reviews point out projected free money circulate of $74 billion over the mine’s lifecycle.

Whereas these figures affirm Reko Diq as a big deposit, additionally they spotlight the huge gulf between a single, albeit large, challenge and the multi-trillion greenback nationwide estimates. 

The idea for the bigger $6-8 trillion figures stays opaque in latest reporting, seemingly representing extremely optimistic, aggregated potential in-ground values of all recognized or suspected mineral occurrences throughout Pakistan, relatively than confirmed, economically recoverable reserves underneath present situations.

Verifying such claims is hampered by the historic underinvestment in complete, trendy geological surveying throughout the nation. Moreover, the immense worth proposition of Reko Diq have to be tempered by its long-term timeline; first manufacturing is focused for 2028, with full ramp-up a couple of further years away and projected money circulate unfold over almost 4 many years.

The present financial actuality additional underscores this hole. 

Regardless of the proclaimed potential, Pakistan’s mining and quarrying sector presently contributes solely round 2-3% to the nation’s GDP, with mineral exports forming a negligible share of world commerce (approx. 0.1%). 

Remodeling potential into vital, near-term financial profit requires overcoming main challenges in exploration, extraction, processing, infrastructure, and safety. 

For policymakers evaluating Pakistan’s technique, recognizing the excellence between promotional rhetoric and the grounded realities of challenge growth timelines and current financial contributions is essential. 

Reko Diq is a crucial anchor, however its financial impression will probably be gradual and long-term. The broader multi-trillion potential stays largely speculative, one pending in depth exploration and growth.