Why Foreign Investors Are Watching Pakistan's Mineral Sector in 2025

Last month I got 14 investor emails in a single week. Saudi, Emirati, Canadian, one from a family office in Singapore. All asking the same thing: what's happening in Pakistan's mineral sector, and how do we get in before it's too late.

That number matters. A year ago I was getting maybe two a month.

Something shifted. And honestly, I didn't see it coming this fast.

The Reko Diq effect is bigger than people admit

When Barrick Gold committed $8.8 billion to Reko Diq and confirmed first production by 2028, it did something no government press release could do. It told global capital that Pakistan's mining sector is now bankable.

That's the word that matters. Bankable.

Because serious mineral investors don't chase geology — they chase deals that don't blow up. Reko Diq investors are watching every quarterly update, and every one of those updates is a signal to other majors that the risk profile has changed. Rio Tinto walked away from this deposit in 2011. Barrick came back and made it work. That's a case study now taught in mining investment circles.

And once one major moves, the mid-tiers follow. Then the juniors. Then the exploration capital. We're at the mid-tier stage right now.

I've had three Australian juniors ask me about running satellite intelligence on their target zones in Chagai before they even send a country manager. That's the sequence. Data first, boots later.

What's actually pulling money in

Let me be specific about what investors keep asking about, because it's not what the headlines say.

It's not just gold and copper. Everyone assumes that. But the questions I'm getting are about lithium in Kohistan, antimony in Chitral, rare earths in the Nagar Parkar granites, and chromite in the ophiolite belts of Waziristan and Muslim Bagh. The critical minerals story is what's driving the smart money.

Here's the thing — the US, EU and Japan have all rolled out critical mineral security policies in the last 18 months. They need non-Chinese supply. Pakistan sits on an estimated $6 trillion in untapped reserves and shares no political baggage with either bloc. That's a rare position.

Also the ground-truth data problem is finally getting solved. For years foreign investors would ask us for reliable geological reports on a target area and there just weren't any. GSP maps from the 1970s. Some scattered PhD theses. Anecdotal data from local miners.

Now you can run breeze geo mineral analysis on a 500 sq km block using Sentinel-2, ASTER, and SAR, cross-reference it against SRTM DEM, and hand an investor a defensible pre-feasibility signal in under two weeks. That didn't exist three years ago. At geomines we've done this for 40+ blocks across Balochistan and Gilgit Baltistan, and the conversion rate from report to site visit is above 60%.

Investors don't need certainty. They need enough data to justify the next $50,000 in due diligence. That's the bar. And satellite intelligence clears it cheaply.

The three risks investors keep asking me about

I'll be honest — not everyone who reaches out ends up writing a check. And the objections are consistent.

One: security. Balochistan is the elephant in the room. My answer is always the same — you don't need to be on the ground for the exploration phase anymore. Satellite work de-risks the first 12 months. By the time boots are needed, you know exactly where to send them and for how long.

Two: title and lease clarity. This one is real. I've seen deals die because two provincial departments claimed jurisdiction over the same block. The SIFC has cleaned up a lot of this but not all of it. My advice to any Pakistan mining investment thesis is to budget 90 days for title verification before signing anything.

Three: repatriation of profits. The SBP rules have loosened, but investors want to see other foreign miners actually pulling money out before they believe it. Barrick will be the test case. If they can move dividends cleanly starting 2028, the floodgates open.

I used to think the biggest barrier was geology risk. I was wrong. It's paperwork risk. Geology we can map from space. Paperwork requires patience and the right local partners.

Where I'd look right now if I were a foreign investor

Not Reko Diq. That ship sailed.

Look at the copper-gold porphyry belt extending northeast from Chagai — there are at least four zones showing similar alteration signatures on ASTER that no one has drilled properly. Look at the chromite ophiolites in Khuzdar that are still being mined by hand. Look at the lithium-bearing pegmatites in Kohistan that a Chinese team quietly sampled in 2023.

And look at the small mine owners. I own 15 leases in Gilgit Baltistan myself and I can tell you — the ownership fragmentation in Pakistan means you can acquire proven ground for a fraction of what an equivalent Australian or Chilean lease would cost. The trick is finding the ones with real geology under them, not just optimistic paperwork.

That's the part satellites solve.

So when someone asks me why foreign investors are watching Pakistan in 2025 — the answer isn't one thing. It's that the risk stack finally got short enough for capital to do the math. Barrick did the math. The Saudis did the math. The question is who does it next, and on which block.

Anyone want to guess?