Ukrainian lithium – between hope and fear – the world

In Ukraine in the Ukraine as if time care. Only a handful of people live there, the houses are empty and dilapidated. Harvested fields indefinitely. The neighboring village of Copanka looks the same. There are almost all houses abandoned. The locals say one only child was born here throughout the year.

Pensioner Volodimir from the village of Copanka says: « I started working in 1976. I was a number 400 in Kolhoz, and now there are no people. There are only no wedding. Nothing as before. »

People are leaving Copanka because there is no job. The bus only comes twice a week. Donald Tramp probably heard of these villages. But this end in Central Ukraine is important, better said here that lies below the ground – the largest lithium reserves in the country.

Waiting for the agreement

These sites could be the subject of an agreement on raw materials between Washington and Kiev. The first attempt of the agreement has failed in February. It is still negotiated on the final version of the agreement. The prime of Ukrainian Prime Minister Julia Svirdenko says that her government sent a team in Washington to speed up negotiations.

Since the 1970s, it is known that Ukraine has lithium sites. However, in the area of ​​these two villages is the only one that has already been investigated at today’s criteria. All other sites were examined in the Soviet Age. In Ukraine, Lithium has not been excavated so far.

Excavation is not in sight

Ukrainian company Ukrlithiummining is 2017. received permission to investigate the deposit in Polohivki. It was also done between 2018. and 2020. It was estimated that it was 40 million tons of lithium, which would be the largest site in Europe.

The director of Mihajlo Hove Hove Hove Television, to trial wells that went up to 600 meters in depth, promise about a million and per tonne of ore annually over twenty years. But the company did not move far, because according to the data of the municipality of Smoline, the mentioned villages are presented, there are currently no works.

This is a worrying local government. Another 2023. Local MPs marked the company’s activities as unsatisfactory: « Municipal Small Wants to discuss social issues here. But to date it is nothing done, » says the first man of Municipality Massura.

In March, the company told the site that Poohivk belonged to the Ukrainian people, but that the company received a research and exploitation permit and that she paid 2.6 million euros.

Fear of pollution

The people who live there are hoping for new jobs, but at the same time some are preferred that the environment will be polluted. Tatjana from the village of Copanka says: « We are not against it. But it must make sure that we do not remain without water and roads, to improve our infrastructure. Of course we want this to happen and that the municipal budget is filled with money ».

Misk Masura from Smolin expresses a fearful of water problem: « We recently learned that a disaster. It would be a disaster, because in diameter, there are fewer water in the climate change and other factors. And the pond drills ».

Ural Minning announced last year that the company had examined the possible consequences of exploitation. And now the company added an explicit view that in case of exploitation « there will be no consequence for the sources used by the Municipality ». And we remarks that the works were procrastinated by the company: « April 2024. The company made a temporary feasibility study, it is an important stage on the way to the beginning of works. The following important phase is currently being prepared.

First projects under the agreement?

In Ukraine, four lithium sites are currently being investigated. Two are in the areas occupied by Russia. The Solva-Balka site is located in the Zaporoscopies area, and the Sevchenko site in the Donjek region. The remaining two sites are in central Ukraine, one in the deposit, and the other in good ones, which promises most.

Ukrainian geologist Bohdan Slobodan says that it was examined in Soviet Epoch. According to the then estimates, it could be twice as big as deposit in Polohivki. But for now there are no current research.

« Fainshel Times » calculated in early March that the Irish enterprise of Techmet interested in the site is good and to participate in the tender. The partner of this Irish company is a billionaire Ronald Lauder, otherwise a friend of American President Tramp.

According to this newspaper, it could be one of the first projects after the conclusion of the United States agreement and Ukraine on rare metals. If the agreement is to be signed at all. Then the thing in Polohivki could be started.