Editorial: Afghanistan's rich oil and gas deposits

According to experts with the United States Geological Survey, Afghanistan has 1.6 billion barrels of oil and 15.6 trillion cubic metres of natural gas - roughly ten times and six times, respectively, more than past estimates made by Soviet experts. Since the law on the exploitation of oil and gas has already come into force, private companies are now expected to invest in tapping these riches. Interested companies may now apply for licenses to the Ministry of Mines and Industries to get started. In the Eighties, when the USSR was extracting our oil, Soviet experts built a small refinery with a capacity of 100 tons, saying the output was limited so that Afghanistan would continue importing oil from the Soviet Union. However, natural gas was tapped on a vast scale. Since the Soviet Union was the sole buyer, it fixed the price at a few US cents per cubic meter and installed a meter on the other side of the Amu Darya river so that they could pump as much as they wished and pay us a small amount worth 14 million dollars a year. This sum was assigned as a down-payment on Afghanistan’s debts. Afghan gas was pumped to Central Asia, while Central Asian gas went to Russia and Russian gas was sent to western Europe. Now that plans to lay a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India via Afghanistan have been agreed, Afghan gas could also be pumped to Kabul and the surplus exported to the subcontinent using this route. This is thanks to the US experts who have discovered two new fields in northern Afghanistan.