Digging For Dignity – OpEd
Dry and patient and unyielding the plains of Chagai spread like a parable. Underneath their ochre surface are buried, for centuries, reserves of copper and gold, silently backing the rise and fall of Balochistan. This mineral wealth had been promised for decades, an incomplete word that was mentioned in boardrooms and cabinet meetings, but never fulfilled in the lives of the people most affected.
On the other hand, the story would appear to be changing now. And while Balochistan was not a footnote at the Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum 2025 in Islamabad this April, it was the headline. Global investors, policy architects and corporate executives converged on the ground beneath the province to discuss a future emerging out of it. One of the largest undeveloped deposits in the world, the Reko Diq copper gold project were the center piece of these conversations. Numbers, staggering numbers: a total a resource base of over 50 million ounces of go and over 10 million tons of copper, which give to Pakistan the hope for a much needed economic lifeline and industrial transformation.
It’s not without context that the world is noticing this again. It took place amid the heightened foreign interest in critical minerals necessary for a clean energy transition. Saudi Arabia’s Manara Minerals is in KMC negotiations to take up to a 20 per cent stake in the Reko Diq project in line with its strategy to acquire supplies of critical input. The field is already being signaled by the United States, as well. As the US interest and prospects for bilateral cooperation intensifies, senior US diplomat Eric Meyer met with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and expressed American interest to advance cooperation in the mining sector.
Barrick Gold, the Canadian mining giant and majority stakeholder in Reko Diq, has committed to raising over $2 billion in financing to develop the mine. Term sheets are anticipated by the third quarter of 2025. According to current projections, the mine will begin yielding returns by 2028, with substantial cash flow expected to follow. The province of Balochistan, which holds a 25% equity stake in the project, stands to gain over a billion dollars in royalties and dividends over the mine’s operational life.
Yet, wealth alone cannot rewrite a legacy. For Balochistan, the question is not merely whether minerals will be extracted, but whether dignity will be restored. That dignity has often been denied. In previous decades, Balochistan has remained a region of paradox: rich in natural resources, yet persistently underdeveloped. While the federal government reaped revenues, local communities received few benefits. Roads crumbled, schools operated without teachers, and healthcare remained elusive. Simultaneously, separatist movements took root, feeding on real and perceived injustices. Security concerns became a dominant lens, reducing local voices to security risks rather than stakeholders in their own future.
This time, there are signs that the model may be evolving. The Reko Diq project includes provisions that go beyond profit margins. It promises the creation of over 7,500 jobs during the mine’s construction and 4,000 permanent positions once operations begin. These are not peripheral roles, they include skilled employment in mining, mechanical engineering, logistics, and environmental monitoring. To build this workforce, a collaborative training initiative between the Government of Balochistan and technical institutes is already in the planning phase.
The infrastructure developed to support the mine will ripple outward. Roads and transmission lines linking Nok Kundi to the national highway and power grid will open up previously isolated regions. In parallel, a portion of the project’s revenues has been earmarked for local development, including healthcare, education, and access to clean water in communities like Chagai. But progress cannot exist without protection. Given the region’s volatility, Pakistan’s military has committed to establishing special security zones around the project. The army chief himself assured investors of unwavering protection against sabotage and militancy. While such guarantees may be essential, security cannot substitute for legitimacy. If local communities do not feel that they have tangible benefits that they are not partners in progress then the patterns of resistance may reappear.
It could also be a hedge against opacity involving multiple international actors, as compared to the decision to remove from the radar a Batty, which is a potential allegory for dropping Iraq from the radar. Sitting in the middle of Saudi and potential U.S. interests, the project could be subject to more scrutiny of everything from transparency to following global environmental and labor norms. This may result in external scrutiny to be a safeguard rather than a burden for a country with a checkered history of governance in extractive industries.
The implications are as significant as wide. If the Reko Diq project is allowed to progress according to plan, it would have the potential to reduce Balochistan’s reliance on federal transfers and hence improve its own fiscal autonomy. The existence of multinational firms could encourage the creation of ancillary sectors as transport, hospitality, machinery maintenance, diversifying thus, the economic base of the province. And yet, history tempers optimism. The wounds of past exploitation run deep. Balochistan has seen wealth emerged from Saindak and gone to Sui, while its people have continued to bleed. And that must not echo the betrayal of the current moment. Mineral development is not a colonial project draped as ‘development’ or a fortress closed to the world behind checkpoints. It must be a process of participatory, just and locally empowered nature
There is more than gold beneath the ground of Chagai. There is a chance, a rare one, for Pakistan to recalibrate its relationship with a region long on the margins. The minerals of Balochistan could fuel electric vehicles in Europe, data centers in California, and wind turbines in the Gulf. But their truest value lies in their power to light homes in Dalbandin, build schools in Washuk, and restore trust between a state and its citizens. Digging for minerals is easy. Digging for dignity, that is the real challenge.
