Afghanistan under Taliban rule starts producing oil
Sar-e-Pul province’s northern oil well is inaugurated by the acting petroleum minister.
According to state-run media, Afghanistan’s government, which is dominated by the Taliban, has begun collecting oil from wells in the north of the nation.
According to acting Mines and Petroleum Minister Sheikh Shahabuddin Delawar, “Priority will be given to the employment of technical and non-technical staff and the reconstruction of the mine using the revenues of Sar-e-Pul.”
Delawar was speaking during a ceremony to inaugurate the wells in the Qashqari oilfield in Sar-e-Pul province with many prominent Taliban leaders.
The Kabul Times cited a statement from the Mines and Petroleum Ministry to indicate that the Qashqari basin contains 10 wells, and 200 tons of oil are being recovered from nine of them.
More than 1,000 tons of extraction capacity from Qashqari is what officials aim for.
The Taliban inked a contract last year with a Chinese business to produce oil from Sar-e-Pul after regaining control of Kabul in 2021.
A 25-year agreement to collect oil from the Amu River basin and create an oil reserve in the north was also inked by the temporary Afghan Taliban administration in January.
The Chinese corporation would spend $150 million in the first year and rise to $540 million in three years, as per the pact.
According to the Bakhtar News Agency, Afghanistan is said to have undeveloped resources worth more than $1 trillion, which has piqued the curiosity of global investors.
