A Chinese firm earlier won the contract to exploit Afghanistan’s largest copper deposit. Although the Islamic Republic repeatedly says the United States invaded Afghanistan to steal its resources, US firms have almost no interest in the country and it is China that has the main involvement in Afghanistan’s resources.
China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) won the oil contract to exploit three blocks in northern Afghanistan. CNPC offered to pay a 15 percent royalty, to pay a 30 percent corporate tax and also to build a refinery, Abdul Jalil Jumriany, policy director at the Mines Ministry in Kabul, told Bloomberg news.
The refinery is something Afghanistan wants badly. Afghanistan imports almost all its fuels and has seen supplies halted by border closures with Iran and Pakistan.
In January, Iran blocked 1,900 fuel tanker trucks at its border for a month, forcing a spike in transport and food prices across Afghanistan.
The blocked trucks were from Turkmenistan and Iraq. The settlement required Afghanistan to import Iranian oil products instead. And the Afghans say Iran is charging them much more than Iraq or Turkmenistan.
“The business case for a refinery is good,” Jumriany said. Afghanistan needs large supplies of asphalt, refined from crude, to pave thousands of kilometers of dirt track as modern roads, as well as heating and transport fuel.
Afghanistan’s only working refinery, which was opened last year on its northern border with Uzbekistan, has a capacity of just 3,650 barrels a day, only 8 percent of the country’s needs, Jumriany said.
