Effective strategy being pursued to gauge minerals potential in Balochistan.

ISLAMABAD -- The government is working on an effective strategy to determine unexplored minerals in Balochistan province, which possesses a variety of valuable ore resources.

Accordingly, an approval has recently been granted for setting up a new public sector company in the province to accelerate minerals' exploration activities, besides giving a task to the Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) to map 50 Toposheets of 'outcrop area' to identify hidden resources in Balochistan.

'The new entity titled 'Balochistan Mineral Exploration Company Limited (BMEC)' will be a joint venture of the Federal and Balochistan governments with 10 percent and 90 percent shares respectively,'a senior official privy to the petroleum sector developments told reporter.

Highlighting the company prospects, he said a part of continental-scale Tethyan Copper Belt was located in Chagai District that had tremendous economic mineral potential as 'a number of promising ore deposits including of copper (along with associated gold and silver), iron, lead and zinc have already been discovered.'

This year, the official said, the federal government had allocated Rs20 million in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP 2020-21) for geological mapping of the 50 Toposheets, out of 354 unmapped Toposheets of Balochistan.

The geological maps provide a bird's eye view of the surface and (subsurface) distribution of various types of rocks and economic minerals that are found in a particular region.

Through the...