The image of Pakistan Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir displaying some shiny rocks from a briefcase at the White House made quite a flash, creating a perception that the country has tremendous amounts of untapped critical mineral reserves.
Since then, the promises have only got bigger. A Chicago-based PR firm, PR Newswire, made two claims on 2 October: one, “Pakistan natural resources are estimated at around $6 trillion making it one of the largest precious metals and rare earth minerals in the world.” And two, Pakistan delivered its first shipment of indigenously sourced and prepared antimony, copper concentrate, and rare earth elements with neodymium and praseodymium. This consignment inaugurates the $500 million partnership framework between the Government of Pakistan and US Strategic Metals, which was signed in September this year.
However, a sober analysis reveals a significant gap between these Pakistani claims and ground realities. The minerals it purports to offer are either in quantities too small to matter, of a type that the US does not need, or would be much more easily sourced from other partners. Pakistan is pulling a fast one, yet again.
Pakistan’s ‘$6 trillion mineral wealth’
For years, the Pakistani leadership has cited a figure of $6 trillion in untapped mineral wealth. However, this number is not based on any internationally certified data, such as the NI 43-101 standard, which is required by financial markets to validate a mine’s economic viability. It is a speculative, theoretical valuation of what might be in the ground, not what can be economically recovered.
Official data of the Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) or the Ministry of Energy (Petroleum Division) and the US Geological Survey (USGS) invalidates the claims. According to the authoritative USGS Minerals Yearbook, Pakistan’s mineral and quarrying industry accounted for just $6.5 billion in FY20, and its mineral exports were less than $1 billion. Observers place the actual potential value of Pakistan’s recoverable mineral deposits at approximately $100-300 billion, and this would be extractable over a span of decades, not years.
Even if we were to assume that Pakistan has struck metaphorical gold, it seems unlikely that these resources are realisable as reserves. Mineral reserves are the economically mineable portion of a measured and/or indicated mineral resource. A reserve is a proven asset. To be classified as a reserve, a deposit must have undergone detailed technical and economic studies demonstrating that extraction is justified at a specific point in time. The usage of the $6 trillion mineral resource figure indicates that the technical studies to sift reserves from these resources are yet to be done. Overall, this sounds like a promotional figure that the government of Pakistan has used in its sales pitch.
Also read: America gifted China its rare-earth monopoly — and India helped too
Antimony, copper, and rare earths
Pakistan does have gold and copper reserves in the Reko Diq and Saindak mines in Chagai district of Balochistan. Reko Diq, touted as a world-class deposit, remains almost entirely undeveloped. Its new operator, Barrick Gold, has aimed to begin production by 2028.
The Barrick deal on Reko Diq highlights the long lead times for mining operations and is a clear demonstration that official optimism simply does not translate into production in a few years. The other mine in Saindak is being developed by the Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) in partnership with Pakistani state-owned enterprises. USGS data also confirms that Pakistan does produce copper concentrates. Thus, the claim on copper concentrates seems to be true.
Next, we come to the claims of indigenously prepared antimony. Antimony is a critical element in flame retardants, semiconductors, and military applications. Its global supply chain is heavily dominated by China, while the US has no domestic mine production of antimony. Thus, Pakistan has pitched itself as a player here.
However, official data indicates limited production of the element in Pakistan — just 66 metric tonnes in 2021. Recent years have seen a resumption of production, but by no means is the country a hotspot for antimony production. In March 2025, Pakistan announced the discovery of a large antimony deposit. However, the size and quality of this reserve have not been independently verified, and no credible geological mapping data has been released. The US has far better and more stable potential partners to build an antimony pipeline — such as Australia, Bolivia, and Tajikistan — all of which have larger, proven reserves than Pakistan.
What the data says
But the most dubious claim is the one about rare earth reserves. USGS data indicates zero production of rare earths by Pakistan in the 2020-21 Minerals Yearbook (the latest available number). Pakistan’s own Geological Survey Yearbook has just one throwaway line about investigating the fly ash from Thar Coalfield for rare earth elements. None of the officially released mineral maps point to rare earth element mines. And we are not even talking about rare earth processing and refining here, which requires technical know-how and machinery.
While deposits of light rare earth elements (LREEs) do exist in regions like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the size of these deposits and their quality are yet to be verified. Independent estimates place Pakistan’s total REE reserves at just 100,000 to 400,000 tonnes. This is quite small compared to India’s established reserves of over 7 million tonnes or even the US’ domestic reserves of over 2 million tonnes. More crucially, Pakistan does not appear to have any significant deposits of heavy rare earth elements (HREEs).
The US, through companies like MP Materials and its Mountain Pass mine in California, is actively working on increasing its LREE supply. Moreover, the present LREE market is also in a glut. There is more supply than demand. The critical vulnerability that the US needs to solve instead is its reliance on China for HREEs like dysprosium. Pakistan does not solve this problem.
This context is crucial for interpreting the claim that the shipment to the US contained “rare earth elements with neodymium and praseodymium”. Neodymium and praseodymium are LREEs found naturally within some mineral ores. Therefore, the shipment almost certainly consisted of a raw mineral ore that contains these elements as part of its natural composition. It was not ‘prepared’, i.e. separated or refined shipment of neodymium oxide or praseodymium oxide, which are the actual high-value industrial products.
Thus, it seems like Pakistan has pulled a fast one. Why the US — despite its own government data saying otherwise — is willing to countenance these tall claims is a topic for another opinion piece.
Pranay Kotasthane and Tannmay Kumarr Baid are researchers at Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)