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Afghan Gold and Minerals – backed by City of London banker Ian Hannam, former BHP chief executive Chip Goodyear and Jan Kulczyk, the Polish billionaire – also emerged in December as the preferred bidder for the Balkbab copper exploration licence close to Kabul, which is one of three gold and copper exploration licences put out for tender.

These include vast reserves of oil, gas, copper, gold and lithium.

A copper mine joint venture between Metallurgical Corp of China (MCC) (1618.HK: Quote) and Jiangxi Copper (0358.HK: Quote) in Afghanistan is expected to start production of copper concentrates in 2013, an executive at MCC Tongsin Resources Ltd said on Wednesday. The first phase of the Aynak copper mining project would have a designed capacity of 200,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate, said Zeng Tao, sales manager of the copper and zinc unit of Hong Kong-listed MCC. He said capacity would be expanded to 500,000 tonnes in the second phase but did not provide a timeframe for completion. MCC was also considering building a smelter at the site, he added.

State-owned Hindustan Copper Ltd, which has expressed interest in bidding for the development of mines in Afghanistan, is also embarking on an expansion plan to increase its mine capacity from 3.2 million tonnes to 12 million tonnes per annum in this financial year, which started in April. The monopoly producer of the metal ore is set to invest around $985 million over the next five years in its expansion drive.