ISLAMABAD: The ministry of petroleum and natural resources has begun a campaign to explore rich mineral deposits in the country.
As part of such efforts a more proactive policy in coordination with all stakeholders to successfully achieve the task and fulfill the national energy needs, an official indicated in a statement.
He said in the past, only few deposits were explored which could not possibly alleviate economic conditions on the ground, but now effective measures were underway to attract more investment for the sector.
He was of the opinion that a major energy resource of the country, a power project centered on Thar coal could develop energy security, if given sufficient attention could develop import substitution, economic development in rural areas and technology transfer for large scale mining.
Discoursing on the challenges of developing Thar coal, the bureaucrat said it included complex geology-dunes sand and silt stone cover, high moisture content besides the crippling lack of local expertise to develop large open cast mines.
He said the country’s coal potential had been estimated at 185 billion tonnes with current consumption of 7.5 million tonnes per annum against annual production levels of 4.5 million tonnes.
Regarding gemstone sector, he said Pakistan had world class deposits of emerald, ruby, tourmaline, topaz, garnet, aquamarine and quartz.
Business opportunities in mineral sector are plentiful, huge coal resources were located mainly at Thar, Sonda-Jerruk and Lakhra while high grade marble and granite existed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Northern Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have substantial deposits of precious stones and semi-precious deposits including aquamarine, emerald, garnet, peridot, ruby, topaz and tourmaline. Large metallic mineral deposits of copper, chromite and zinc are present in Balochistan while Punjab and Balochistan are enriched with iron ore etc.
