EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF POTENTIAL CHROMITE ENDOWMENT OF PAKISTAN-AN OBLIGATION ON PART OF THE GOVERNMENT OF PAKISTAN.

Almost complete range of the geological environments which are required for the formation of stratiform as well as podiform chromite deposits, i.e. presence of ophiolites, thrust slices of the abducted masses along the suture zones, deep seated island arc cumulates, magmatism during inter-arc lifting etc. have already been established in an extensive vast belt in Pakistan. Geographically this potential chromite bearing belt stretches throughout the entire lateral distance from eastern to western border in the northern part covering Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and longitudinally from northern to its southern border covering Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan provinces of the Country.

Currently chromite mining throughout Pakistan is being conducted over hundreds of mining operations either through small scale surface mining or ploughing dogholes on trial and error basis on the premise of guessing to encounter chromite lenses/bodies. There is no such mining that could be called scientific mining which is preplanned or targeted to extract a known grade from a measured block on sustainable basis. Moreover any state of the art chromite processing plant for production of upgraded chrome or Ferrochrome production is non-existent in the Country. Resultantly almost the entire chromite production is exported to China. Millions of tons of chromite have been extracted from this part of the world since 1903 when first mining operation for chromite in Muslimbagh region of Balochistan Province was started. As evident from the below given chart only 1.37 million tons of chromite has been mined out and sold to China in raw form during the last eleven years. This entire production comes from the podiform type of chromite deposits as so far no attempt has been made for the exploration of stratiform deposits despite the fact that strong signatures for occurrence of chromite deposits exists in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pukhtunkhwa Provinces .

 The analysts have already forecasted that the global chrome market will grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 4.84% during the period 2019-2023. Therefore under this context, it becomes highly obligatory on part of the policy makers of Pakistan both at Federal as well as at the Provincial levels to blueprint and implement an effective work plan aimed to boost its chromite production through modernization of the existing operational mines in the Country as well as initiate exploration work on the known stratiform chromite potential occurrences already reported. Here it may not be impertinent to mention that the stratiform chromite deposits are considered of immense economic importance as 90 % of the world’s production comes from chromite-rich seams within layered intrusions which host majority of the world's chromite reserves that also contain significant platinum-group-element (PGE) mineralization.

Although occurrence/s of representative stratiform mafic-ultramafic igneous intrusions like Bushveld, Stillwater and skaregaard types of complexes are not yet established in Pakistan, however amongst the known ones, the rocks of the Chilas Complex and the Sapat complexes are reported to exhibit extensive chromite layering in their respective ultramafic suits of rocks. The Chilas Complex is a large mafic-ultramafic body outcropping in the Gilgit and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provinces that extends more than 300 km having a maximum width of 40km. At its base, there are intrusive bodies as large as 5 square kilometers of a dunite-peridotite-troctolite-gabbronorite-pyroxenite-anorthosite association that displays excellent layering and graded bedding containing thin layers of chromite having ±26% Cr2O3, and ±37% Fe2O3. The Sapat layered complex occurs in the immediate hanging wall of the Indus suture zone north of the Kaghan valley in KP Province and apart from its other associated rock units contain ultramafic cumulates up to 15x±2 Km long and wide in direct tectonic contact with the Indian plate. A 100 meter thick dunite rock unit and another 200 meters thick dunite-pyroxinite rock unit of the cumulate contain thin layers of chromite. Chemical analysis of a representative sample from a chromite bearing dunite rock conducted at Geo-Science Advance Research Labs. Geological Survey of Pakistan Islamabad by a private Prospecting License holder in the area has shown (Wt. %) values of Cr2O3=47.55%, Fe2O3=16.40%, MgO=15.72%, SiO2=9.92%, Al2O3=6.92% and LOI=2.62%. 

When viewed under some diverse perspectives as well as viz-a-viz comparison with the Chilas Complex rocks, the Sapat layered Complex seems to have more potentiality of finding chromite deposits thereby justifying its exploration for finding layered chromite mineralization though may be of low grade but certainly will be of larger size. Execution of this green field exploration project at the outset needs to be planned through adopting cost effective modern exploration techniques either by any public sector mineral exploration entity, e.g. Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation (PMDC) or inviting any multinational mineral sector entrepreneur for the purpose as it has an additional attraction of hosting the world’s famous peridotes in its dunite rocks.