ISLAMABAD, 23 Nov 2025: Over the past decade, Afghanistan has repeatedly been branded the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” The phrase surfaces whenever global attention swings back to Kabul and whenever governments fret about securing the metals that power electric vehicles and energy storage. The current rulers (Afghan Taliban) project lithium as the economic redeemer for the nation.
But as Asia’s battery and EV industries scale at breakneck
speed, a sober look at the data shows that Afghan lithium is—at least for
now—more geopolitical story than supply-chain reality.
The countries that actually matter in lithium today
To understand Afghanistan’s position, it helps to look first
at the countries that truly shape the global lithium value chain: China, Chile,
Bolivia, Argentina and Australia.
Chile and Argentina sit at the heart of South America’s
“Lithium Triangle.” They host some of the world’s richest lithium brine
deposits and already export lithium chemicals—particularly lithium carbonate
and hydroxide—used directly by battery manufacturers.
Australia is the largest producer of hard‑rock
lithium (spodumene). Its mines in Western Australia are the workhorses of the
industry, shipping ore and concentrate to refineries abroad, above all in
China.
China is the system integrator. It combines modest domestic
lithium resources with extensive equity stakes in mines abroad, and then
dominates the midstream and downstream: refining, cathode materials, battery
cells, packs, and EV manufacturing.
Many experts believe Bolivia is a special case. It likely
holds the world’s largest single‑country lithium brine resources at
Salar de Uyuni and nearby salars, but technical hurdles and a heavily state‑controlled
model mean that large‑scale, reliable exports have yet to materialize.
These five countries either produce at scale, control
critical processing capacity, or both. They appear, with concrete tonnage and
capacity figures, in official statistics, industry reports, and investor
briefings.
Afghanistan does not.
The war-ravaged country’s reputation as a potential lithium
power is rooted in:
- Soviet‑era geological work from the 1960s–1980s;
- US Geological Survey (USGS) and Afghan Geological Survey
campaigns in the 2000s. The estimates from USGS surveys between 2007 and 2010
indicated around $1 trillion in minerals, with some Pentagon documents citing
between $1 trillion and $3 trillion.
- An internal Pentagon memo reported in 2010, which loosely
compared parts of Afghanistan’s lithium potential to Bolivia’s. A 2010 New York
Times (NYT) article mentioned a comparable field to Bolivia's resources.
These studies did identify lithium‑bearing rocks
and possible brine systems, particularly in central and western Afghanistan.
They also fed into much‑cited estimates that Afghanistan
could hold mineral resources—across many
commodities—worth around one trillion US dollars or more.
But two points are crucial for a policy and industry
audience:
One, there are no internationally recognized, quantified
lithium reserves for Afghanistan.
Secondly, Afghanistan does not appear in the lithium reserve
tables used by investors and governments in the same way Chile, Argentina,
Australia, China, or even Bolivia do.
The widely quoted figures are early‑stage
geological indications and in‑place value estimates, not
bankable reserve numbers.
They tell us the geology is promising but they do not demonstrate how much lithium can be mined profitably, at what cost, and under what conditions.
In practical terms, Afghanistan is still at a pre‑exploration
to early‑exploration stage for lithium in modern commercial
terms. There are no operating lithium mines, no large‑scale
drilling programmes disclosed to markets, and no feasibility studies that would
underpin serious project finance.
Even if Afghanistan, as its present rulers say cashes in on
its possible potential, it will have to overcome basic bottlenecks. It lacks
refining capacity. There are no industrial plants to convert ore or brine into
battery‑grade
lithium chemicals and it has no battery manufacturing or enabling
infrastructure.
A half-an-hour documentary run by the state-controlled RTA
TV says it wants the lithium should not be expeorted as a raw mineral but
processed and packaged inside the country and then the finished product is
exported. A difficult demand to be met for potential investors.
Afghanistan, in short, is off the map for the lithium value
chain as it exists today.
Since the Taliban takeover in 2021, Afghanistan has faced
non‑recognition
by all except Russia, significant sanctions and restrictions on financial
flows, persistent security threats from militant and terrorist groups, weak,
opaque, and highly centralized and politicised institutions.
For mainstream capital, particularly companies linked into
US, EU, Japanese, or Korean supply chains, this is effectively a red‑flag
jurisdiction. Even if a large lithium deposit were proven tomorrow, converting
that into a project bankable by international lenders and acceptable to major
automakers would be extraordinarily difficult under current conditions.
The story of untapped Afghan wealth running into trillions
of dollars is being projected to infuse confidence of its own people in the
country. It competes with, and sometimes reinforces, other narratives about
great‑power
competition, regional infrastructure corridors, and sanctions policy.
For now, however, this remains largely narrative value, not barrels‑equivalent
in the global battery system.
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