Field notes
Explore mineral potential, sustainable practices, and the future of mining across Northern Pakistan. Scroll the archive one story at a time.
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
US Strategic Metals and Pakistan signed a framework in September 2025 covering exploration through refining. The first shipment, in October 2025, was antimony, copper concentrate and rare earths, the same commodities held under licence across our own concessions.
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
Saudi Arabia is pursuing a 15% stake in Pakistan's Reko Diq copper-gold project, backed by a reported $540 million commitment. Our Shigar and Kharmang concessions carry the same commodity pairing, at a much earlier stage.
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
Serpentine turns up across both of our Kharmang licences, Hilal Abad and Mahdi Abad, alongside nephrite jade. It forms through a reaction that makes hydrogen out of rock and water, which is why NASA instruments have spent years hunting for it on Mars.
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
The questions foreign investors actually ask us about mining in Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan, answered plainly, including the parts that should make you cautious.
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
Copper, gold, silver, iron, nephrite, antimony and more: where each is found in Gilgit Baltistan, how it compares with the rest of Pakistan, and which blocks hold it.
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
Where placer gold is found in Pakistan and Gilgit Baltistan, how it is mined today, why most of it is still done by hand, and what a modern operation looks like.
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
Where rare earth elements have actually been found in Pakistan, what Gilgit Baltistan does and does not have, and what the 2025 US shipment really tells investors.
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
Photographs of the actual rough nephrite coming out of our Hilal Abad concession, and answers to what buyers and investors ask us most: which colours we have, how it compares to Pakistan's known nephrite belt further south, and how to see a physical sample.
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
Families have panned Gilgit Baltistan's rivers for gold for generations. Regulators are now warning about the machine-driven rush that followed them, and a Kazakh investor just committed $20 million on the strength of preliminary studies alone. Here is where a licensed, producing operation actually fits into that picture.
Durr & Zircon Mines Consortium
The
Game of Stones
Gilgit Baltistan · Licensed mining operators
