ISLAMABAD: Titanium – a precious but critical mineral of low gravity and density found in rocks, deserts, coastlines and river banks – is not being extracted in Pakistan at any endorsed mineral table, reports WealthPK.
Pakistan spends precious foreign exchange to buy this lustrous white coloured metal in many forms. In 2021, Pakistan imported titanium ores and concentrates from Sierra Leone worth US$85.07 thousand (0.08507 million) and titanium oxides from Czech Republic worth US$9.02 thousand (0.00902 million).
Talking to WealthPK, Assistant Director of the Geological Survey of Pakistan Yasir Shaheen said extensive multiple variations in placer deposits of titanium were found in Pakistan, i.e. riverian placer, aeolian/dessert sand placers and beach placers.
Rivers including Chitral, Dir, Punj Kora, Swat, Kabul, Kurram, Indus, and Neelam Jhelum bring a good quantity of titanium to their banks. The sands of Cholistan, Thal, Kirk, Chagai and Nushki also hide this precious metal. Beaches in Pakistan are also rich in titanium traces.
Private firms or SMEs sieve titanium mostly from the beaches of Gadani and Sonmiani. It is found in heavy mineral sands or black sands keeping minerals like rutile, ilmenite or leucoxene. Titanium recovery from Pakistan’s beach sands is about 15%.’’ Yasir said titanium deposits were also found in hard rocks but it was too difficult to extract without a specific equipment and use of advanced mining technology. This is the reason why titanium extracted in Pakistan is mostly from sands. In this case, it can be sieved by manual shaking. Proper policy to extract such minerals locally is really the need of time.
Sharing his views with WealthPK, Assistant Manager of Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation (PMDC) Taj Muhammad said, “Reported geological study about the existing deposits of titanium in Pakistan shows its presence in Lasbella, Qila Saifullah, Zhob and Ziarat in ore forms, i.e. Ilmenite, Rutile, Titanite, Brookite and Anatase. High concentrations in beach and desert sands of Pakistan are also found. To exploit the potential deposits of such minerals, proper policy, financing, loan strategies for private sector, public-private partnerships and other developmental changes are the need of time.
Titanium is considered a critical mineral due to its strategic metallurgical applications to serve defence, aerospace, and energy sectors. It is also used as white pigment in paints, paper, plastic, and rubber, etc. It is a low gravity and low-density metal and is well considered due to its high strength to wait ratio. Titanium is lustrous and metallic white in colour. In aerated environment, it is superbly resistant to corrosion.
Gemmologist and miner Imran Babar said, “Titanium is found in abundance at different rocky spots in Pakistan but no special work is going on due to a lack of resources and technology. Although deposits are enough, no prominent extraction is on the scene. China is leading the mineral extraction segment of this industry. Pakistan can get Chinese technical help concerning mining and extraction of not only titanium, but also many other minerals. Pakistan must ink a proper policy for a hand-shake with technically strong countries for better economic outputs”.
–INP
