MAZAR-I-SHARIF (Pajhwok): Businessmen from the northern zone said on Friday the prolonged election process had left a deeply negative impact on trade activities and dealt a severe blow to security.
Businessmen said the government needed to shift its focus to resolving the problems being encountered by the traders particular those in the fuel business.
ArashYounusi, secretary of the Balkh Chamber of Commerce, told Pajhwok Afghan News the current election stalemate had left commerce and trade activities paralysed throughout the country.
MAZAR-I-SHARIF (PAN): Residents have been illegally mining coalfields in northern Samangan province, officials said on Thursday.
In Dara-i-Sauf Payan district, a coalmine in Gola area is illegally dug up by local residents, the district chief, Humayun, told Pajhwok Afghan News.
“Common people are benefiting from that coalmine. Residents take home coal from the field for domestic use and we have been able to prevent its sale in the market,” the official said.
BALKH (PAN): The northern Balkh province is rich in natural resources such as crude oil, cement, aluminum, stucco and sulfur, with the extraction of some mines is underway in some parts of the province.
1- The Afghan- Tajik crude oil area:
Located to the north and northeast, the Afghan- Tajik crude oil starches on 31,000 metres long from Takhar to Jawzjan province.
As many as 12 blocks of crude oil and gas have been discovered in Balkh by Terraseis--- a Canadian Company--- two years ago.
MAZAR-I-SHARIF (PAN): An oil-processing plant owned by the Ghazanfar Group has resumed activities after four months of closure at the Hairatan port in northern Balkh province, officials said on Monday.
Having the capacity of refining 500 tons of oil annually, the facility resumed operation in the presence of a number of high government officials on Sunday.
MAZAR-I-SHARIF (PAN): One worker was killed and another injured when a coalmine partially collapsed in the Dara-i-SaufBala district of northern Samangan province, officials said on Thursday.
Governor KhairullahAnosh told Pajhwok Afghan News a delegation had been sent to the area to investigate Wednesday’s incident that occurred at a privately-run coalmine.
He said the government had authorised some private individuals to extract coal from mines in the district.
MAZAR-I-SHARIF (PAN): An agreement on oil and gas extraction from the Afghan-Tajik basin in northeastern Afghanistan was signed on Tuesday with three companies, which would invest $12 billion in the energy-starved country, an official said.
A Ministry of Mining official, Jalil Ahmad, told reporters at the signing ceremony in Mazar-i-Sharif the oil and gas basin, located between Takhar and Jawzjan provinces, had been discovered in 1957. But the domestic situation did not allow exploitation of the deposits.
MAZAR-I-SHARIF (PAN): The coalmine collapse in northern Samangan province was the result of carelessness on the part of engineers and experts, an official said on Monday.
Twenty seven workers were killed, 22 others injured and several others had been missing as a result of the blast inside the coalmine in Do Aab district on Saturday.
Police chief Gen. Mohammad Salim Bekzad told Pajhwok Afghan News a high-level delegation, including the governor, had visited the site on Sunday to investigate the incident.
MAZAR-I-SHARIF/AIBAK (PAN): Twenty-seven workers have been killed during an explosion inside a coalmine in northern Samangan province, officials said on Sunday.
Five people have been missing and 30 others trapped in the mine in Ravi Do Aab district since Saturday's blast, the deputy police chief for Samangan said.
Col. Musadiq Muzaffari told Pajhwok Afghan News the exact toll was yet to be ascertained. He linked the incident to the unprofessional extraction of coal.
MAZAR-I-SHARIF (PAN): Import duty on liquefied gas and fuel has dwindled by 50 percent in the northern province of Balkh, officials said on Sunday.
Revenue from fuel imports through the Hairatan dry port fell to $5 million, compared with $8 million in the previous year.
Mohammad Saber Zaheer, head of fuel and liquefied gas department at the port, told Pajhwok Afghan News the decline was linked to unhealthy competition among traders and a customs duty hike
MAZAR-I-SHARIF (PAN): One thousands tonnes of liquefied gas will be supplied today to Kabul and another 500 tonnes to northern provinces from the Hairatan Port in northern Balkh province, an official said on Tuesday.
The supply would help overcome the gas shortage and reduce the commodity price, the spokesman for the Balkh governor, Munir Farhad, told Pajhwok Afghan News.
