How Taliban earns $600,000 per day in northern Afghanistan

Mohammad Yaqub Abdul Rahman Eke, the Taliban governor in Sar-e-Pol, northern Afghanistan, has admitted that the establishment earns 600 thousand dollars a day from extracting oil from Qashqari wells, Mehr News reports.

He said that 650 to 900 tonnes of oil are extracted from these wells daily and a portion of the income is spent on development projects.

Currently, 15 wells are operating but the number is expected to increase in the future.

He claimed that the cost of building the Sultan Ibrahim dam will be financed by profits from oil extraction ventures, and the project will be launched in April next year.

Chinese influence

Local media Independent Persian reports that during a visit to the Qashqari oil field, in late November, the Taliban governor ordered the Taliban forces to cooperate with the employees of the Chinese contractors operating wells to ensure security.

The Taliban is worried that the Khorasan branch of the Islamic State or their military opponents will make the oil-rich Qashqari region unsafe, the report added. 

During the two decades of war and insurgency against the former government of Afghanistan and its Western allies, the Taliban were accused of making a great deal of effort to make various projects in the country unsafe and were allegedly extorting money from project contractors, Arab News revealed.

In January 2023, the Taliban handed over the extraction of the Qashgari oil field and other Amu Darya oil fields in Jawzjan and Faryab provinces to a Chinese company called Xinjiang Gas and Petroleum in Central Asia (CAPEIC) under a 25-year agreement.

It is estimated that the capacity of the Amu Darya oil region is 87 million barrels. 20% of the income from oil field resources goes to the Taliban.

The process of extracting oil from the Qashqari oil field started in July of this year and initially, the capacity of extraction was 50 tonnes of crude oil in one day. The Chinese company was able to increase the level of oil extraction.

With the overthrow of the previous government in August 2021, the Taliban started a massive campaign to attract foreign investors in the mining sector, and among these, Chinese companies showed great enthusiasm for investing in this sector. Various Chinese delegations travel to Afghanistan to meet with senior Taliban officials.

The Taliban regime has entrusted the mining of the Aynak copper mine in Logar province, the largest copper mine in Afghanistan and the second copper mine in the world, to China.

China owns a large part of Afghanistan's consumer market, and it is believed that with the continuation of the Taliban regime, China's role in the country's economy will become more prominent.

Contractual risks

The Taliban regime was able to dominate Afghanistan by resorting to the military option and signing an agreement with the United States of America on February 29, 2020.

This Islamist extremist group is accused of monopoly of power and violation of human rights, especially of women.

The Taliban government has not been recognized by any country yet, therefore signing the contract for extracting Afghanistan's mines is not legal and has no legitimacy, and it will not hold if the Taliban regime is overthrown.