Afghanistan finds amazing riches, in the form of an amazing mineral find

Afghanistan finds amazing riches, in the form of an amazing mineral find. BHP Billiton on their version of what has happened so far with the Aussie super tax on mining resources, this ties in quite nicely with the Afghan find. My version of Friday's football at Soccer city, as well as a few mobile pictures.



There was a Citi report, which you no doubt saw, which suggested that South Africa ex-energy had the world's most valuable mineral assets still left in the ground. You might, or might not have remembered the list specifically, but South Africa came out tops, largely due to a 91 percent weighting from PGM's in the entire by value makeup. So please stop talking and quoting the gold price on every wireless business program, start focusing on our two most important minerals, Platinum and Palladium. What are the chances of that happening? If you missed it, the fellows over at the Business Insider put together a slide show soon after the report: Forget Oil: 15 Countries Sitting On A Fortune Of Metals And Minerals.



The US has stumbled across a modern day El Dorado in the form of a Afghanistan find of epic proportions, it is being reported on the wires this morning. Is El Dorado Fictional History, or something that has eluded many explorers over the years? Who knows, this find however has been revealed by the US military over the weekend, there is a really cool New York Times article: U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan that explains that this might not be a blessing. Check out the NYT graphic, Minerals in Afghanistan to give you a better idea of what is in store for potential developers of the mineral assets.


Loads of iron ore assets, copper, the lesser known niobium and cobalt are the major mineral deposits. Niobium, do some research, seems to be mostly used in superalloys, from Wiki: "Appreciable amounts of the element, either in its pure form or in the form of high-purity ferroniobium and nickel niobium, are used in nickel-, cobalt-, and iron-base superalloys for such applications as jet engine components, gas turbines, rocket subassemblies, and heat resisting and combustion equipment." Were you paying attention in Chemistry class? My chemistry lecturer at varsity used to slap the periodic table with a three metre stick and hit the exact element that he was talking about, without even looking!




Next big question, this is all very well, but who develops these assets? The Chinese have expressed interest, this is quite close, even if it is inaccessible, no worries for their engineers. China borders Afghanistan, but some serious mountains separate the two. And I mean serious. Check out the Afghan topography. Good, bad, indifferent, I guess the only question really is, will it be only the Chinese who want to have a real go at developing these assets? Because as much as the state might want to tax this or that with their new found wealth, it takes business (in whatever shape) to develop these assets. Be friendly to them.



And that leads nicely into the next piece, the BHP Billiton response to the Aussie mining tax proposed by the Labour government Down Under. Check out the chairman's letter to shareholders on Friday. And then a more telling, download this pdf with the first line: The Australian Government needs to understand the real world impact of the proposed super tax or it will hurt the Australian minerals industry and hurt Australia's future. Let me know what you think, shareholder of BHP Billiton or not.