Award of Shaida Copper Mineral Occurrence Exploration License

H.E Nargis Nehan, acting minister of Mines and Petroleum and H.E Dr. Mohammad Humayon Qayoumi senior advisor to the president in infrastructure matters and acting Minister of Finance visited Herat province to award exploration license of Shaida Copper mineral occurrence.

Ministry of Mines and Petroleum held a ceremony in Herat provincial hall and awarded the exploration license. The ceremony was participated by H.E. the governor of Herat, representatives of Heart people, provincial council members, directors of MoMP, and MoF, Herat local directors, businessmen and tribal leaders of Herat province.

The license, after being signed and the exploration programs of the bidder are assessed, and finally approval by HEC, avails the contractor a three-year exploration opportunity of the mine. As per preliminary assessments, Shaida Copper mineral occurrence is categorized as large scale mining. The mineral occurrence is located in Herat province [Guzara and Adraskan district].

Exploration operation is a crucial prerequisite to extraction, without which, the extraction phase cannot begin. Therefore, the foregoing contractor shall legally initiate operations in this phase after receiving the license. The project cost is estimated to be around 21.3 million USD, which shall be invested by the Silk Road Mining and Development Co. The contractor is obliged to spend around 1 million USD for capacity building, and about 200 thousand USD for carrying out regional social services.

It is worth to be mentioned that in accordance with the executive plan, locals should constitute 95% of the project implementation workforce. This is a promising opportunity to creating hundreds of direct and indirect employment opportunities for the Afghan citizens.