Due to its advan­ta­geous geo­graph­i­cal loca­tion, Luhan­sk region is dis­tin­guished not only by its rich cul­tur­al her­itage but also by its remark­able abun­dance of min­er­al resources. His­tor­i­cal­ly, this region has been known as one of the most indus­tri­al­ly devel­oped areas of the coun­try, with its indus­tri­al and tech­no­log­i­cal poten­tial long rec­og­nized as a key fac­tor in eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. How­ev­er, the his­to­ry of the region has also been marked by major chal­lenges, includ­ing the tem­po­rary annex­a­tion of cer­tain ter­ri­to­ries. The occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries con­tain deposits of var­i­ous lev­els of devel­op­ment and ori­gin, includ­ing gold, coal, nat­ur­al gas, and oth­er min­er­al resources, which has led to a sig­nif­i­cant decline in both extrac­tion and exports. Nev­er­the­less, despite these dif­fi­cul­ties, Luhan­sk region has retained its con­sid­er­able resource base and eco­nom­ic poten­tial.

A total of 517 deposits of var­i­ous min­er­al resources have been iden­ti­fied with­in the region.

Hard coal

Hard coal deposits are con­cen­trat­ed in the south­east­ern part of Luhan­sk region. In total, the region oper­ates 57 state-owned mines with a pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty of 32.8 mil­lion tons per year and indus­tri­al reserves of 2,453.6 mil­lion tons, as well as 97 small­er pri­va­tized min­ing enter­pris­es with a com­bined capac­i­ty of 2.3 mil­lion tons per year. Coal pro­duc­tion in the region in 2007 amount­ed to only 17.9 mil­lion tons, rep­re­sent­ing slight­ly more than 30% of the country’s total coal out­put. Asso­ci­at­ed min­er­al resources found togeth­er with hard coal include methane gas and ger­ma­ni­um. Methane pro­duc­tion in Luhan­sk region reached 2.85 mil­lion m³ in 2006.

Among oth­er ener­gy resources, the sub­sur­face of the region con­tains one explored oil field that is cur­rent­ly not under devel­op­ment; 11 gas con­den­sate fields, of which eight are being devel­oped; 15 nat­ur­al gas fields, nine of which are in oper­a­tion; as well as 43 coal-bed methane gas fields, 16 of which are cur­rent­ly exploit­ed.

Gold

Vein-dis­sem­i­nat­ed gold deposits have been iden­ti­fied with­in fold­ed coal-bear­ing ter­rige­nous stra­ta of the Donets fold­belt, where they form two genet­i­cal­ly relat­ed min­er­al types: the gold-poly­metal­lic type (Bobrykivske and Hostrobuhorske deposits) and the gold-pyrite type (Mykhailivskyi ore occur­rence).

A typ­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the gold-poly­metal­lic type is the Bobrykivske deposit, locat­ed in the north­west­ern part of the Bobrykivske ore field, which coin­cides with the area of the anti­cline of the same name, mea­sur­ing 11 km in length and 2.5 km in width.

• 1) Devel­op­ment of frac­tures asso­ci­at­ed with fold­ing process­es;
• 2) For­ma­tion of frac­tures branch­ing from the axi­al Bobrykivskyi fault;
• 3) Devel­op­ment of frac­tur­ing with­in the zone of the sub­lon­gi­tu­di­nal Yelanchyk–Rovenky fault.

Pilot indus­tri­al exploita­tion is cur­rent­ly being con­duct­ed at the deposit. It is con­sid­ered a pri­or­i­ty tar­get for indus­tri­al devel­op­ment and holds a license for exploita­tion. Detailed explo­ration of promis­ing gold ore occur­rences is also under­way in the region.

The mor­phol­o­gy of the ore bod­ies at the Bobrykivske deposit is extreme­ly vari­able. The shape of the ore bod­ies becomes sig­nif­i­cant­ly more com­plex due to the inter­sec­tion of ore shoots with sand­stones con­tain­ing weak­ly gold-bear­ing dis­sem­i­na­tions of pyrite and arsenopy­rite. The com­plex geom­e­try of the deposits sug­gests the pos­si­ble pres­ence of blind stock­works (ore columns) at depth, mak­ing eval­u­a­tion of the deposit by drilling rather prob­lem­at­ic.

Thus, the ore bod­ies (stock­works and ore columns) con­sist of thin vein­lets and dis­sem­i­nat­ed ore min­er­al­iza­tion. Larg­er veins (0.2–0.5 m thick) occur only rarely.

The gold con­tent with­in the ore bod­ies is uneven­ly dis­trib­uted. Dis­sem­i­nat­ed ores con­tain rel­a­tive­ly low gold con­cen­tra­tions. High­er con­cen­tra­tions are char­ac­ter­is­tic of quartz-car­bon­ate-gale­na-spha­lerite veins and vein­lets, while the high­est con­cen­tra­tions occur in quartz-car­bon­ate-gale­na-sul­fos­alt vein­lets, devel­oped main­ly with­in the stock­work (ore body No. 1) of the upper ore lev­el, as well as direct­ly adja­cent to the seams of the Bobrykivskyi fault.

Construction raw materials

The con­struc­tion indus­try of the region is rep­re­sent­ed by 124 min­er­al deposits, 25 of which are cur­rent­ly being exploit­ed. These include main­ly deposits of brick and tile raw mate­ri­als (40), build­ing stone (37), chalk and lime­stone (19), and sand (12).

Sandstone

Sand­stones are used in the region for the pro­duc­tion of crushed stone and rub­ble prod­ucts. Their explored reserves are suf­fi­cient for extrac­tion, although the qual­i­ty does not ful­ly sat­is­fy indus­tri­al require­ments. The largest quar­ry in the region oper­ates the Valian­ivske sand­stone deposit. Small­er quar­ries are devel­oped at the Vol­nukhynske and Yarmonk­inske deposits. The Kono­pli­an­ivske dimen­sion-stone deposit is also under devel­op­ment, where lime­stones are extract­ed and used as wall-build­ing stone.

The region also pos­sess­es large reserves of ceram­ic raw mate­ri­als and con­struc­tion sand.

Chalk

The Lysy­chan­sk rein­forced con­crete prod­ucts plant devel­ops the Shypylivske chalk deposit. Con­struc­tion chalk reserves account for approx­i­mate­ly 17.7% of Ukraine’s total reserves. The Mashchynske, Berezivske, and Shypylivske deposits are cur­rent­ly under devel­op­ment. All these deposits are asso­ci­at­ed with Upper Cre­ta­ceous chalk for­ma­tions wide­spread in the north­ern and north­west­ern parts of the Don­bas region.These deposits are locat­ed under favor­able min­ing and hydro­ge­o­log­i­cal con­di­tions for open-pit extrac­tion, with only minor over­bur­den con­sist­ing of Pale­o­gene and Qua­ter­nary sandy-clayey sed­i­ments.

The Bilo­horivske deposit is locat­ed about 10 km north­west of Lysy­chan­sk. Its min­er­al resources belong to the Tur­on­ian and Conia­cian stages of the Upper Cre­ta­ceous and are sep­a­rat­ed by a 20 cm lay­er of phos­phat­ic chalk. Over­bur­den rocks con­sist of Qua­ter­nary loams and sands, as well as chalk of the Conia­cian stage, with an aver­age thick­ness of 45 m in the north­ern part of the deposit and 22.7 m in the south­ern part. The hydro­ge­o­log­i­cal con­di­tions are favor­able for min­ing oper­a­tions. The deposit is exploit­ed by the Donet­sk soda plant using open-pit min­ing meth­ods, with pri­ma­ry chalk pro­cess­ing car­ried out at a crush­ing and sort­ing plant.

Argillite

Deposits of expand­ed clay raw mate­ri­als genet­i­cal­ly asso­ci­at­ed with argillites and clay shales of the Car­bonif­er­ous, Low­er Per­mi­an, and Juras­sic peri­ods have been explored with­in the Donet­sk fold­ed struc­ture (cov­er­ing the Donet­sk and Luhan­sk regions).

The Novoz­vanivske deposit of expand­ed clay raw mate­ri­als is locat­ed in the Popas­na dis­trict of Luhan­sk region. The area of the deposit with­in the reserve esti­ma­tion bound­aries is 27.4 hectares.

The min­er­al resource is rep­re­sent­ed by a mixed rock com­posed of argillite (70–80%) and silt­stone (20–30%). These rock types are inter­con­nect­ed and form a total thick­ness rang­ing from 24.3 to 69 m, with an aver­age thick­ness of 45.6 m.

The qual­i­ty of the clay raw mate­ri­als from the Novoz­vanivske deposit, accord­ing to its phys­i­cal-mechan­i­cal and tech­no­log­i­cal prop­er­ties, com­plies with the require­ments of GOST 25264–82, “Clay raw mate­ri­als for the pro­duc­tion of expand­ed clay grav­el and sand.” The deposit is cur­rent­ly not under devel­op­ment.

Gypsum

With­in the Dnieper-Donets Depres­sion, gyp­sum deposits occur at acces­si­ble depths in the caprocks of salt domes. Gyp­sum deposits are of par­tic­u­lar inter­est in those salt domes where dis­so­lu­tion process­es have formed thick “gyp­sum caps” locat­ed close to the sur­face.

The Popas­ni­anske gyp­sum deposit is locat­ed in the Popas­na dis­trict of Luhan­sk region. The gyp­sum occurs in two lay­ers sep­a­rat­ed by an argillite interbed mea­sur­ing 5.2–8.9 m thick. The gyp­sum stone is suit­able for pro­duc­ing Grade I con­struc­tion gyp­sum. The approved reserves of the deposit (thou­sand tons) by cat­e­gories A+B+C₁ amount to 15,388, includ­ing: cat­e­go­ry A — 2,612, cat­e­go­ry B — 5,558, cat­e­go­ry C₁ — 7,218, off-bal­ance reserves — 588. The deposit is cur­rent­ly not being exploit­ed.

Groundwater

The reserves of fresh and min­er­al ground­wa­ter in the sub­sur­face of Luhan­sk region are con­sid­er­able. All min­er­al water deposits are cur­rent­ly exploit­ed, although their actu­al use rel­a­tive to the explored reserves remains low.

One of the major envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns is the dis­charge of indus­tri­al waste­water into under­ground for­ma­tions. In 2001, total waste­water dis­charges amount­ed to 294 mil­lion m³, of which 46 mil­lion m³ were insuf­fi­cient­ly treat­ed and 248 mil­lion m³ were treat­ed inad­e­quate­ly. Ground­wa­ter resources have been explored at 73 sites, 58 of which had been devel­oped by 2006, with extrac­tion exceed­ing 513 thou­sand m³ per day. Approved reserves amount to near­ly 1.8 mil­lion m³ per day.

Mineral waters

Luhan­sk region pos­sess­es sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial in med­i­c­i­nal min­er­al waters. Min­er­al waters have been explored at 11 sites with total reserves of near­ly 2.6 thou­sand m³ per day, includ­ing one site intend­ed for table water pro­duc­tion with reserves of 72 thou­sand m³ per day. Cur­rent­ly, only 6 sites are in oper­a­tion. Min­er­al waters are used both for ther­a­peu­tic pur­pos­es and for indus­tri­al bot­tling. The reserves of the cur­rent­ly exploit­ed min­er­al water sites amount to 2,090 thou­sand m³ per day. Promis­ing deposits of bromine-rich waters include the Vesela Hora and Lysa Hora areas, with reserves esti­mat­ed at 1,009 thou­sand m³ per day. All min­er­al water deposits with approved reserves are offi­cial­ly under exploita­tion, but their uti­liza­tion rate remains extreme­ly low — only about 1%.

The min­er­al waters of the region are char­ac­ter­ized by a high lev­el of min­er­al­iza­tion. They are com­mon­ly used exter­nal­ly in the form of ther­a­peu­tic baths, while inter­nal con­sump­tion gen­er­al­ly requires dilu­tion.

In con­clu­sion, the min­er­al resources of Luhan­sk region rep­re­sent an impor­tant asset not only for region­al but also for nation­al devel­op­ment in Ukraine. Despite the tem­po­rary occu­pa­tion of cer­tain ter­ri­to­ries, the region remains rich in nat­ur­al resources that may con­tribute to eco­nom­ic growth and social devel­op­ment in the future.