Al-Fajir (AF) Salts International was founded in 1998 by Mr Tahir Hassan. AF Salts is a private limited company and is a subsidiary of Al-Fajr International. We have supplied large amounts of salt within Pakistan for industrial use and exported salt products as well. AF Salts is one of 10 companies in Pakistan who have their own salt mine lease in Khewra.
Mr Tahir Hassan’s passion for providing the world with Pakistan’s Himalayan Salt motivated him to create and place the product on a platform that was globally accessible. AF Salts strives to provide its product internationally with its current clients in South East Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
We produce salt products from our Khewra mines. This is mined from the Salt Range mountains located in the Potohar Plateau in the south of the Himalayas. These salt deposits are the second largest in the world and were formed over 250 million years ago. It is to be noted, that Himalayan Salt, with the various minerals that compose this salt, is the healthiest salt produced in the world.
AF Salts provides products that are high in quality, durability, and reliability.
Af Salts is extremely keen on providing Bulk Salt for de-icing and industrial purposes (Soda Ash, Caustic Soda, Chlorine, Chloroakali, Plastic etc.).
AF Salts has its own mining lease spread over 632 Acres (256 Hectares). We can supply large quantities of bulk salt for industrial use and de-icing purposes. There is a vast presence of Rock Salt (halite) in the Potohar Plateau and our mining area is present in the heart of the Salt Range. Therefore, mining and supplying large orders in Excess of 100,000 Tonnes is easily possible for AF Salts.
AF Salts, a partner organization of Al-Fajr International has been carrying out conventional salt mining on its leased area. This whole area was granted to us in the mid 90’s and we have been doing conventional salt mining ever since. There is a proper process of attaining the area for the mines. Primarily a license is issued and after huge investments and proving salt in the area, a lease for a number of years is issued. AF Salts has had a lot of success during their 13 years of conventional mining. On average we have produced 6000 tons of salt per year. Our first clients were Sitara Chemicals in Faisalabad. Next, we started supplying salt to Ittehad Chemicals in Kala Shah Kaku, near Lahore. Our current client is ICI. Our main mine was affected by the large earthquake in 2005 and therefore we are working on making new mines now. We have also learnt from our past experiences in the first mine and aim to produce even more salt in these mines, as our clients require more salt as well.
In 2010, AF Salts hired a technical consultant for its services and consultation related to solution ‘salt’ mining. Solution mining is responsible for extracting 60% of the salt world wide, however, no such project has ever been attempted in Pakistan’s commercial sector. Solution mining employs the use of boreholes to inject water into the salt mine (an underground cavern) which then dissolves the salt. The resulting brine is then pumped out and supplied via pipes to the desired location, saving transport costs and minimizing labor cost as well as making it a continuous process as opposed to conventional mining. Furthermore this is an environmentally clean process that does not evolve blasting / explosives or machine digging for the extraction itself. This is a long term setup for AF Salts which will be functional in a couple of years. This salt solution will be transported to ICI, Pakistan, AF Salts long term client in conventional mining, at their plant at Khwera. ICI has already signed an agreement with AF Salts, where AF Salts will provide the client with a specific amount of brine. This project will also bring about a new mining culture in Pakistan and we expect it to be a trendsetter. There are a lot of salt, coal, gold, copper and other reserves in Pakistan that have yet to be surveyed or mined at a higher level. By using this innovative approach, our company hopes to bring about a change in mining in Pakistan.
