KARACHI: After Canada’s Barrick Mining Corporation, Chinese firms and major Pakistani business groups have also secured mining leases for copper, gold and other minerals in Pakistan’s southwest, signaling a broader expansion of the sector, according to a senior port executive involved in export planning.
Sharique Azim Siddiqui, chief executive officer of Pakistan International Bulk Terminal Limited (PIBT), said the facility had been contracted to export more than $5 billion worth of minerals from the Reko Diq project in phases, with additional mining ventures emerging in the same mineral-rich belt in Balochistan.
“There are some Chinese involved in that, but otherwise there are Pakistani big business houses that have taken the mining leases,” he said in an interview with Arab News this week.
Last week, Reko Diq Mining Company (RDMC), a Barrick subsidiary, signed a port access agreement with PIBT to use Pakistan’s first dirty bulk cargo handling terminal at Port Qasim for large-scale exports of copper and gold concentrate starting from 2028.
Located in the remote Chagai district of Balochistan, Reko Diq is among the world’s largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits. Barrick holds a 50 percent stake in the project, while Pakistan’s federal and Balochistan governments each own 25 percent.
