Why Pakistan Should Already Be on Your Critical Minerals Shortlist

Last month a procurement lead from a European specialty chemicals group asked me a blunt question over WhatsApp: "Can you actually ship antimony to Rotterdam, or is this another story?" Fair question. He'd been burned twice in 18 months — once by a Central Asian supplier, once by a Southeast Asian trader who couldn't produce a single assay that matched what landed at port.

I told him yes. And I sent him the concession paperwork, the lab reports from SGS Pakistan, and the route map from Skardu through Karachi Port. He's coming in March.

That conversation is happening more often now. And it's the reason I'm writing this.

The shortlist problem nobody talks about honestly

When Brussels published the Critical Raw Materials Act and Washington updated the USGS critical minerals list, the same 50 names came up: cobalt from the DRC, lithium from Chile and Australia, rare earths from China (still 87% of separated REE output, by the way), antimony increasingly from China and Russia, tungsten — same story.

The diversification conversation that followed was real but narrow. Canada. Australia. Greenland. A bit of Africa. Maybe Indonesia for nickel.

Pakistan barely got a mention.

Honestly, I understand why. The country doesn't have a long export history in hard-rock minerals beyond chromite and some marble. Mining law sits at provincial level, which confuses outsiders. Security headlines from 15 years ago still shape perception. And there's no Pakistani equivalent of a BHP or a Rio writing white papers in London.

But here's the thing — the geology doesn't care about any of that. The Karakoram, the Kohistan island arc, the Chaman fault zone, the Chagai belt in Balochistan — these are the same kinds of rock packages that built mining economies in Chile, Mongolia and Iran. The minerals are there. The question has always been whether the operating environment lets you get them out at scale.

In Gilgit-Baltistan, which is where our 16 concessions sit, that environment has shifted meaningfully in the last four years.

What's actually on offer from GB

Let me be specific, because vague is useless to a buyer.

Antimony. We're sitting on stibnite occurrences in a region where channel samples have come back between 4% and 22% Sb. The global antimony market tightened hard after China's export controls kicked in September 2024 — prices went from around $13,000/t to north of $39,000/t inside nine months. EU and US defence buyers (antimony goes into armour-piercing rounds, night vision, flame retardants for military electronics) are openly looking for non-Chinese, non-Russian supply. Pakistan is one of maybe six countries on earth that can credibly answer.

Tungsten. Scheelite and wolframite in skarn and vein settings across the Karakoram batholith contact zones. Same supply-chain story as antimony — China dominates, Western buyers need alternatives, and the tungsten carbide market for cutting tools and defence applications isn't slowing down.

Copper. Porphyry-style mineralisation with grades comparable to what's being mined in the Reko Diq district further south. EV demand is the obvious driver but I'd argue grid build-out matters more over a 20-year window.

Molybdenum. Mostly as a porphyry by-product, which is exactly how 80% of global moly gets produced anyway. Important for high-strength steel, important for the energy transition.

Rare earths and lithium. Early stage. I won't oversell this. We've got pegmatite fields that look promising for spodumene and we've got monazite indications that need a lot more work. Anyone telling you Pakistan has a defined REE resource right now is lying to you. But the host rocks are there, and we're drilling.

There's also gold (lode and placer in the Indus and Hunza systems), silver, lead, bauxite, jade and granite — but those aren't the critical minerals story. Those are the cash flow that funds the critical minerals work.

Why this matters for EU and US sourcing

Look, I'm not going to pretend Pakistan is the easy answer. It isn't. Logistics from Skardu to Karachi Port is roughly 1,800 km of road that includes the Karakoram Highway, which closes for landslides more often than anyone would like. Export documentation takes patience. Banking under FATF scrutiny got easier in 2022 but still needs proper structuring. Concession transfers go through provincial mineral departments and federal approvals if foreign equity is involved.

But compare that honestly to what your alternatives look like.

A new mine in Canada or Australia — 12 to 18 years from discovery to first production, billions in capex, permitting that's gotten harder not easier. Africa — variable, often excellent geology, but jurisdictional risk that's been ugly for several recent operators. Latin America — community opposition and resource nationalism have stalled major projects from Panama to Peru.

Pakistan, for a buyer willing to do the work, offers concessions that are already granted, geology that's been mapped (Geological Survey of Pakistan has done more than people credit), and a federal government that — under the SIFC framework set up in 2023 — has actually made foreign investment in mining a strategic priority. Reko Diq getting back to construction with Barrick is the proof of concept everyone needed.

And the price point on entry is a fraction of what equivalent ground costs in tier-one jurisdictions.

What a serious conversation looks like

I used to think the first conversation with a potential JV partner or off-taker was about geology. Send the assays, send the maps, let the rocks talk.

I was wrong about that. The first conversation is about trust and process. Can you actually deliver tonnage on a schedule? Can you produce documentation that survives a compliance review in Frankfurt or Houston? Can you handle a site visit by a technical team without three weeks of choreography?

That's what we've spent the last two years building — not just the resource story, but the operational backbone behind it. Independent lab relationships. Proper concession documentation. A logistics chain we've actually tested with smaller shipments before we talk about anything at scale.

If you're a buyer or a strategic looking at critical minerals Pakistan as a diversification play, the door is open. We'll send you the technical package, we'll host you in Gilgit, and we'll be straight with you about what's drill-ready, what's earlier stage, and what the realistic timeline to off-take looks like.

The geology is the easy part. Always was.