Though there are no systematic surveys on mines and minerals done in Afghanistan, some basic studies show that the country has a huge amount of mines and minerals, including coal. Coal resources are located in 16 provinces of the country. Major coal resources are located in Samangan, Baghlan, Bamiyan, Takhar and Balkh province. As per the USGS survey Afghanistan’s coal resources are estimated around one billion metric tons. The same survey shows a 750-kilometer underground coal line from north-eastern Badakhshan Province to the south-western Herat Province. This puts Afghanistan as one of the first countries that has enough high-quality coal that is not yet extracted systematically. Long internal wars, political and security instability, lack of standard transportation and proper roads to and from the coal mines are some of the reasons that the coal mines are not yet legally and professionally extracted. Afghanistan’s coal resources are extracted through small-scale mining, mainly from mining sites in Bamiyan, Samangan and Baghlan provinces. Coal resources in Afghanistan are mainly produced by Northern Coal Enterprises (NCE), the only state-owned coal enterprise. In 2019, eight private companies were engaged in coal extraction in the country.
