MINERALS OF UKRAINE
When you hear stories about how Ukraine is rich in mineral resources - coal, gas, oil, and even gold with diamonds, but every year we take from tens of billions of cubic meters of Russian gas and millions of tons of oil for a fabulous price - and I want to say: `Diamonds in our land - heaps! Here are just a shovel to buy it with `. Yes, in the depths of our land lies about 120 kinds of minerals, of which over 30 are particularly significant economic value - in other countries, their order of magnitude smaller, but many of these natural treasures are hidden so far and deep that at first it is necessary to invest a lot of money, so get them.
However, over the past year, the process went: bought two rigs for deep gas production in the Black Sea, agreed with foreign investors on the development of shale gas. But the results have to wait for 2-3 years, not before. In the meantime, `Today` by professor of the Kiev National University. Taras Shevchenko, Doctor of Geological Sciences Vladimir Mikhailov has selected three groups of minerals: the first - which we have enough, and they are produced or could be produced for themselves and for export (coal, iron ore, sulfur, rock salt, rare metals, uranium); the second - of which are missing, but they are there (oil, natural gas), and, finally, the third - the mythical: the gold and diamonds.
And find out how much to give to the surface a ton, cubic meter, or grams underground treasures, and whether to do it or ready to buy cheaper.
The main industrial wealth of Ukraine - a coal and iron ore. Total coal reserves in Ukraine - 56.6 billion tons, including those confirmed - 45.3, probable - 11.3. This is about 4% of world reserves (8th place in the world. - Ed.). Moreover, this high-quality coal, its 42.7 11 billion tons (95%), brown - 2.6 0.3 billion tons).
Coal country provides itself completely, producing annually about 60 million tons It is the only raw material, which is enough. So this year, to reduce its energy dependence on Russia, Minenergouglya Namen issue to the surface 85 million tons of comparison, in the 1970s mined a record 200 million tonnes per year. As is known, the main coal reserves are concentrated in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in the south (86%), there is little in Kharkiv, Poltava and Zaporizhzhya regions. Alas, our coal is expensive: lies deep (500-1000 m), many layers of thin (0.5-1.2 m), a combine is not empty, it is necessary to cut butt.
Hence the cost - $ 35 per ton, and the government buys for $ 30. Not expensive, Polish and Kazakh are cheaper, so the treasury annually subsidizes the mine by about $ 1 billion in costs almost twice cheaper coal from the Lvov-Volyn basin and the Dnieper basin (Cherkasy region. - City Vatutine and Alexandria), but the quality of the local #39;black gold#39; inferior Donetsk - it is only suitable for burning in power plants. Now lignite is mined almost - only about 1 million tons per year.
ORE. For certain types of raw materials
Istochnikpriroda been particularly generous to Ukraine.
For example, the country achieved almost everything you need for the iron and steel industry: iron ore, manganese and coal. Therefore, products of the mining industry and metallurgy#39;s mainstay of our exports. Iron ore, the main raw material, without which neither iron nor steel will not weld, our businesses will be enough for 200 years. Deposits: Krivoy Rog basin (Dnipropetrovsk region)., Mariupol (Donetsk region)., White Lake iron ore district (Zaporozhye), iron ore district Kremenchug (Poltava region)., Deposits of the Kerch Peninsula (Crimea).
That sounds reassuring, but the reality is not so smooth. Is increasingly affected by the main drawback of our ore - low iron and high silica (gangue). This greatly increases the cost of its processing.
As is the fact that in the pursuit of ore have to bite deeper into the bowels of the earth.
Manganese, and titanium. This chemical indispensable element in steel. No deposits of `a` manganese is very well located close to the iron ore reserves (Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region.
Velikotokmatskoe and, Zaporozhye), Ukrainian metallurgy would be competitive. Alas, our ore is quite poor, average manganese content - 24%. Our competitors - South Africa, China, Georgia - are working with raw materials, where 35-55% of manganese.
Simply put, they need to extract, transport and process half as much ore than Ukrainians.
Titanium is widely used in mechanical engineering and its connections - in the production of dyes. Ukraine - the main supplier of titanium raw materials to Europe and Russia. Titanium ores - one of the few types of metallic materials with which Ukraine does not have any particular problems in terms of reserves and economic viability. Identified dozens of deposits of titanium-magnetite ores.
The most significant Irshansk and Stremigorodskoye (Zhytomyr region)., Malyshev (Dnipropetrovsk region)..
Brimstone and salt. There are large deposits of sulfur in Precarpathians (196 million tons), but its production has dropped substantially due to a sharp decrease in consumption of sulfur in the world at the end of XX century. It was mined in the Lviv region Rozdolskaya, Yazovskom, Podorozhnyanskom, Novoyavorivskom, Nemirovsky fields. However, due to continuous production in large quantities deposits are nearly exhausted. Now most of these sulfur development stopped.
And it may even be for the better - too many problems with the environment.
Powerful salt deposits in the Donets Basin, the Dnieper-Donets Basin and the Carpathians, but as a natural underground brine - in the Carpathian region. The largest fields that have long been developed - Artyomovskoye (nearly 16 billion tons) and Slavic (5.5 billion tons, both - Donetsk region) and Solotvynska (0.5 billion tons, Transcarpathia). Significant reserves of salt in the brine of salt water of the Azov-Black Sea and the Crimea, in particular - Siwash Lake.
Annually is exported to 4 million tons of salt and about 1.5 million country consumes itself.
