Iran’s Chabahar Port to Link Afghanistan and India

Iran, Afghanistan and India will soon sign an agreement on the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Gulf on Oman to link Afghanistan with India, said Shakib Mostaghni, spokesman for Afghan ministry of foreign affairs. (IRNA, 25 March)

The landlocked Afghanistan would need a major seaport to export its newly found huge mineral deposits. The mines, including some of the largest unexplored copper, iron and gold deposits in the world, were identified and mapped by U.S. Defense Department’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) in 2009-2011. They also include significant lithium and rare earth metals.

To use Chahbahar, Afghanistan needs to send the ores to railhead to be constructed in Herat for transshipment through Iranian railway system to Chabahar. The railway linking Iran to Herat is under construction by the Iranians, but its completion has been constantly delayed due to right-of-passage for property owners and other issues.

Chabahar, a deep-sea port on the Gulf of Oman in Iranian Baluchistan, is a short distance away for Gwadar Port on Pakistani side of Baluchistan on the Arabian Sea. Shipping mineral ores from central and eastern Afghanistan straight through Pakistan to Gwadar is a viable alternative. However, tense relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan and security issues at their border regions make Chabahar an attractive route to bypass Pakistan altogether.

File photo: Port of Chabahar in Iranian Baluchistan on the Gulf of Oman (IRNA)     

India to Build Iran-Afghan Rail Link

India to Transport Iron Ore from Hajigak to Chabahar - Circumventing Pakistan’s Gwadar

In a bold move to link mineral-rich regions of Afghanistan to a deep sea port in the Arabian Sea without passing through Pakistani territory, India has announced that it will construct a 900-km (560-mile) railway linking the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman to Hajikak region in Bamiyan province of Afghanistan, some 130 km (81 miles) west of Kabul.

A consortium of Indian companies has won the international tender on a rich iron ore mine in Hajikak, Afghanistan’s largest, and are expected to be bidding on three copper and gold mines in the country when they are tendered early next year. Without the rail link to Chabahar, the Indians had to transport the ore south through Pakistani Baluchistan to the Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea. The rail link circumvents Gwadar in a move seen as a major blow to the potential of that port in becoming the gateway for transporting the rich mineral deposits in landlocked Afghanistan to the world.

Iran’s Chabahar, in Iranian Baluchistan, and for years near idle as a deep-sea commercial port, will have the potential of becoming the gateway to Afghanistan if and when the construction of the railway is completed. Chabahar is 72 km (45 miles) west of Gwadar.

Transforming Chabahar into Petrochemical Production and Transportation Hub

Also Competing with Gwadar for Chinese and Indian Markets

Ports of Chabahar and Gwadar are shown at the bottom left-hand corner of the map. registan.net

Iran announced on Sunday the plans to transform the southeastern port city of Chabahar into the hub of the country’s petro-chemical production and export. The National Iranian Petrochemical Company (NIPC) will build plants for production of 15 million tons of petrochemicals in the Free Trade Zone of Chabahar. Iran currently exports some $14 billion worth of petrochemicals a year from its Persian Gulf ports.

20 million cubic meters of natural gas per day and 3.6 million tons of ethane per year are required as the feedstock for the production, and will be transferred to Chabahar via 28-inch pipelines linking Iran’s South Pars gas field in Assaluyeh to Chabahar. [SHANA, 14 August].

Chabahar is strategically located on the Gulf of Oman next to the Pakistani port of Gwadar at the entrance of the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Chabahar and Gwadar are located in the greater Baluchistan region that encompasses Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan, Pakistan’s Baluchistan and Afghanistan’s Nimrooz and southern Helmand provinces.

With vast mineral resources found throughout Afghanistan, with estimated worth of three trillion dollars, Chabahar and Gwadar can serve as seaports linking landlocked Afghanistan to India and China that are expected to be the main consumers of Afghan minerals that incudes copper, iron, gold and lithium among others.

Ironically, India financed the expansion of Chabahar into a commercial port in direct competition to Chinese financed Gwadar long before the Afghan mineral wealth became the hot topic in the emerging new great game involving the two Asian economic giants and other world powers. It is now possible and quite probable that both ports will be in play for transporting Afghan minerals. Chabahar serving as the prefer port for minerals extracted in northern and western Afghanistan, including the iron ore deposits in Bamiyan, copper deposits in Herat, and lithium and rare earth deposits in Nimrooz and southern Helmand. Gwadar can serve as the preferred port for the gold deposits in Pakistani Baluchistan, and other vast mineral deposits in eastern and southern Afghanistan.