Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum said it signed a contract on September 8 for the second block of the Kudi Khel talc mine in Shirzad district, Nangarhar province. The agreement was signed by Minister Hidayatullah Badri and the chairman of Nangarhar Afghan Talc Mining and Processing Company. The ministry put the area at 3.826394 square kilometres and the contract value at $65.865 million.

The company is to pay a royalty of 2,265 Afghanis for each tonne of talc extracted, according to the ministry. It said the project was expected to create local jobs and stressed that operations must follow applicable laws, technical standards and procedures. The announcement gave no start date, output target or contract term, so the signing alone does not establish that extraction has begun.