An Energy Boom In Afghanistan?

Image credit: Wikicommons

Afghanistan’s Coming Energy Boom? -- Zachary Keck, The Diplomat

Last month Afghanistan’s Minister of Mines, Wahidullah Shahrani, told the Wall Street Journal that he expects the country to start exporting oil as early as this year. Mr. Shahrani explained that oil wells in the Amu-Darya Basin in northern Afghanistan, while currently producing no oil, will have an output level of 25,000 barrels of oil a day by the end of this year. He also said that this is expected to rise to 40,000 bpd in 2014.

All of this oil will be exported initially, as Afghanistan’s first oil refinery is not expected to come on line for at least two to three years.

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My Comment: The resources are there, but with no infrastructure and a tenuous security situation .... who wants to invest "serious money" into such an unstable country .... I know that I would not.

Afghanistan's Untapped Oil And Gas Reserves Are Being Targeted By The Taliban

An oil installation in an area near Herat, Afghanistan, December 17, 2009. Voice of America

The New War for Afghanistan's Untapped Oil -- Antonia Juhasz, The Atlantic

I am looking out the window as men in grey turbans run from my building out onto the highway, their AK 47s at the ready. "There's been an accident," my Afghan guide, Danish calmly tells me. "Someone was just killed in the plaza here."

I am in Faryab province in northwest Afghanistan, which had been considered among the more peaceful areas. "Was someone hit by a car?" I ask. Danish pauses. The "Oh yes, she's American" look passes quickly over his face before he replies, "Somebody was shot."

Within a few minutes we get a report from the secretary of Abdullah Masoumi, the governor of Khoja Sabz Posh District, in whose office we've been waiting for some time. It was the Taliban, he tells us, and the victim was Commander Czhulam, a leading member of the governor's security team and a former commander under General Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of the country's most powerful warlords.

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My Comment: The security situation makes it impossible for any serious development of these fields .... but it makes you realize that Afghanistan does not need to be poor .... the oil and mineral wealth is there but the country's violent history and culture is only condemning it to a future of poverty and dependence on international aid.