INSTITUTIONALISING MINERAL RESOURCE DISCLOSURE IN PAKISTAN: A CRIRSCO-ALIGNED REPORTING FRAMEWORK AND ITS RATIONALE

Abstract

Pakistan has entered a renewed phase of mineral-sector reform and investment promotion, yet it still lacks a domestically administered reporting code for the public disclosure of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves that is aligned with the Committee for Mineral Reserves International Reporting Standards (CRIRSCO). This paper argues that the gap is not merely procedural. In jurisdictions where mineral disclosure is weak, technical uncertainty can become capital-market risk, sovereign-risk exposure and reputational loss. The paper develops this argument through three connected lines of evidence. First, it revisits the Poseidon nickel boom in Australia and the Bre-X gold fraud in Canada as formative episodes that exposed the market consequences of unsupported or fraudulent mineral claims and helped shape the JORC Code, NI 43-101 and the wider CRIRSCO family. Second, it compares the institutional architecture of major CRIRSCO-aligned regimes, emphasising the common principles of Transparency, Materiality and Competence, the role of the Competent Person or Qualified Person, the link between resource classification and confidence, and the conversion of Mineral Resources to Mineral Reserves through Modifying Factors. Third, it examines Pakistan through the Reko Diq arbitration, the post-2022 reconstitution of the project, the 2025 National Minerals Harmonisation Framework, and the emergence of Pakistani corporate mineral exploration by National Resources Limited and Mari Energies/Mari Minerals. The analysis concludes that a Pakistan Reporting Code should be developed through a National Reporting Organisation with recognised professional organisations, enforceable ethics and discipline, a Table 1-style checklist, independent technical-review capacity, and explicit integration with Pakistan Stock Exchange and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan disclosure requirements. Such a framework would not eliminate geological, commercial or political risk, but it would provide a transparent, internationally legible mechanism for the technical disclosure on which investment, licensing and project finance increasingly depend.