Critical Minerals for EV Batteries: What Gilgit-Baltistan Can Actually Supply

Every second buyer email I get now opens with the same line: "We're looking to diversify away from China for battery minerals." Fine. But most of them then ask for a lithium spodumene spec sheet from Skardu by next Tuesday, and that's where the conversation gets honest.

Let me walk through what Gilgit-Baltistan can actually put on a vessel in the next 24 months for EV battery supply chains, and what's still 3-5 years out. I'd rather lose a deal by being straight than sign an MoU I can't deliver on.

Copper is the one that's real right now

If you're building EVs, you already know the number — a battery electric vehicle needs roughly 83 kg of copper versus about 23 kg for an ICE car. The IEA's numbers put copper demand from clean energy tech at somewhere around 40% of total refined demand by 2040. That's the wall the industry is walking into.

Our copper concessions sit in the Kohistan Island Arc and along the northern edge of the Karakoram. This is the same broad metallogenic belt that hosts Reko Diq down in Balochistan, though the geology up north is more porphyry-and-skarn than the classic Chagai porphyry setting. We're seeing chalcopyrite-dominant mineralization with grades in surface channel sampling ranging from 0.6% to 2.4% Cu across several of our blocks, with associated gold credits (0.3-1.1 g/t on the better intercepts).

Honestly, I got the sequencing wrong at first. I spent 2022 chasing lithium conversations because that's what everyone was calling about. What I've learned since — the buyers who actually sign off-take and pay deposits are copper concentrate buyers. Smelters in China, Japan and increasingly the Gulf. Lithium buyers want a bankable resource statement. Copper buyers will engage on a channel-sampling and trenching program if the grades are there.

So if you're a battery pack manufacturer or a cathode producer looking at copper for electric vehicles from a non-Chinese jurisdiction, this is where we can have a real conversation. We're not going to be Escondida. But 15,000-40,000 tonnes of concentrate a year across a JV portfolio? That's inside the envelope.

Lithium and rare earths — the honest version

Here's the thing about lithium supply Pakistan-wide: the pegmatite belts exist. The Shigar valley, parts of the Astore and Neelum systems, and pegmatite intrusions across the Nanga Parbat–Haramosh massif have been throwing off tourmaline, beryl and spodumene indicators for decades. Gemstone miners have been pulling aquamarine and topaz out of these pegmatites since the 1970s — the LCT (lithium-caesium-tantalum) signature is there.

But indicator minerals aren't a resource. What we have on two of our concessions is early-stage: outcrop mapping, some XRF work, and spodumene-bearing samples confirmed in thin section. Grades in grab samples are encouraging (we've seen Li2O values above 1.2% in individual samples) but grab samples lie. Anyone in this business knows that. To get to a JORC or NI 43-101 compliant resource we need a drill program, and that's a 2025-2027 conversation, not a 2024 shipping conversation.

Same story on rare earths. There's monazite in the placer systems of the Indus and there are documented REE-bearing carbonatites and alkaline complexes in the wider region. We're doing reconnaissance. I'm not going to write a spec sheet I can't stand behind.

What I'd say to a serious lithium or REE buyer: come in early, co-fund exploration, and you get first-mover rights. That's the deal. We're not selling a mine — we're offering a position on the ground floor of what will be a real district within this decade.

Nickel, cobalt, graphite — not our story

I'll save you the pitch. Gilgit-Baltistan is not a nickel or cobalt jurisdiction in any meaningful sense. There's some ultramafic geology in the Kohistan arc, and there have been academic papers on Ni-Cu-PGE potential, but nothing I'd take money against. Same with battery-grade graphite — not our geology.

If someone is offering you cobalt out of northern Pakistan, ask hard questions.

The bits people forget: antimony, tungsten, molybdenum

EV supply chain conversations get so fixated on the cathode chemistry that people forget the rest of the vehicle and the rest of the grid it plugs into. Antimony goes into lead-acid starter batteries (still in every EV), flame retardants for battery housings, and grid-scale storage chemistries being tested now. Tungsten for anode research (WS2 and tungsten-doped materials are active R&D). Molybdenum for the high-strength steel in EV chassis and for catalyst applications.

We have all three. Antimony stibnite veins in the Chilas-Darel area with grades that have historically run 8-15% Sb. Molybdenum associated with our porphyry copper systems. Scheelite (tungsten) documented across several of our blocks.

These aren't the headline metals. They're on the US critical minerals list, the EU CRMA strategic list, and the UK critical list all the same. And the antimony market in particular — with China's export controls tightening through 2024 — is where a serious defence or solar buyer should be paying attention.

What a real off-take conversation looks like

If you've read this far you're probably serious. So here's how it actually works from our side:

We hold the exploration licence from the GB Directorate of Mines and Minerals. Mineral leasing in GB runs under the 2017 GB Mining Concession Rules, which is a workable framework — royalty structures are clear, foreign equity is permitted, and repatriation of dividends works through the standard SBP channels. Logistics run via the Karakoram Highway to Islamabad, then rail or road to Karachi or Port Qasim. It's not cheap and it's not fast (figure 7-11 days concentrate-gate to vessel), but it's proven — jade and granite move out of GB on this route every week.

What I need from a serious counterparty: technical team on the ground for site visits, willingness to co-fund a Phase 1 drilling program on the copper blocks, and a term sheet that reflects the risk-share. What I don't need is another NDA that goes nowhere.

If you're building a non-China battery supply chain and you've been told Pakistan isn't on the map — email me. I'll send you the concession coordinates and last quarter's assay results. We can decide together whether it's worth a flight to Skardu.