Miners’ hunt for copper takes Barrick to Pakistan’s western frontier

For three decades, international mining companies have tussled with officials and locals over a patch of desert around an extinct volcano in Pakistan’s neglected, insurgent-prone western province of Balochistan.

Now, after resolving years of legal disputes, Barrick Gold wants to invest $7bn to revive the mining project, Reko Diq, which experts believe contains one of the world’s largest untapped reserves of copper and gold.