The Kharkiv region pos­sess­es sig­nif­i­cant reserves of min­er­al resources. The region con­tains deposits of nat­ur­al gas, oil, hard coal and brown coal, rock salt, phos­pho­rites, ochre, clay, sands, lime­stones, and chalk. A total of 420 min­er­al deposits are reg­is­tered with­in the region (includ­ing 90 reg­is­tered com­plex deposit sites), of which 180 deposits (includ­ing 63 reg­is­tered sites) are cur­rent­ly under exploita­tion.

Natural gas

The Kharkiv region belongs to the Dnipro-Donets oil and gas-bear­ing province.

Nat­ur­al gas is rep­re­sent­ed by 43 deposits, whose total recov­er­able bal­ance reserves of cat­e­gories A + B + C₁ amount to 320.8 bil­lion m³, or about 30% of Ukraine reserves. Twen­ty-three deposits are cur­rent­ly being exploit­ed, with recov­er­able reserves of cat­e­gories A + B + C₁ total­ing 264.2 bil­lion m³ (36.32% of Ukraine reserves). Accord­ing to 2006 data, gas pro­duc­tion in the region reached 7,742.4 mil­lion m³.

Oil

Oil in the region is rep­re­sent­ed by 11 deposits with bal­ance recov­er­able reserves of cat­e­gories A + B + C₁ total­ing 5.6 mil­lion tons. The region also con­tains 33 con­den­sate deposits with recov­er­able reserves of cat­e­gories A + B + C₁ amount­ing to 11.2 mil­lion tons, which con­sti­tutes 13.47% of Ukraine total reserves. Of these, 20 deposits are cur­rent­ly being exploit­ed and con­tain reserves of cat­e­gories A + B + C₁ total­ing 8 mil­lion tons. Oil pro­duc­tion (includ­ing gas con­den­sate) in 2006 amount­ed to 248.6 thou­sand tons.

Coal

Coal reserves play an impor­tant role among the min­er­al resources of the Kharkiv region. Hard coal is rep­re­sent­ed by 6 deposits with indus­tri­al reserves of cat­e­gories A + B + C₁ total­ing 1,987.1 mil­lion tons. Brown coal is rep­re­sent­ed by one deposit with reserves of cat­e­gories A + B + C₁ amount­ing to 390 mil­lion tons, which has been pre­pared for indus­tri­al devel­op­ment.

Phosphorites

Phos­pho­rites in the Kharkiv region have a lim­it­ed dis­tri­b­u­tion. They occur in the south­east­ern part of the Dnipro-Donets Depres­sion (Izium, Barvinkove, and Lozo­va dis­tricts) and are asso­ci­at­ed with the Cre­ta­ceous and Pale­o­gene sys­tems. The main phos­phate-bear­ing hori­zon of the Kharkiv region is the Ceno­man­ian hori­zon, which is most wide­spread in the Izium and Lozo­va dis­tricts.

Explo­ration works in the Lozo­va dis­trict iden­ti­fied the Orilske phos­pho­rite deposit, con­sist­ing of two sec­tions: Orilska‑1 and Orilska‑2. The esti­mat­ed prospec­tive and fore­cast phos­pho­rite resources here amount to 67.5 mil­lion tons. Prospect­ing and eval­u­a­tion works were car­ried out at the Orilska‑2 sec­tion, where reserves and prospec­tive phos­pho­rite resources of cat­e­gories C₂ and P₁ were esti­mat­ed at 20.2 mil­lion tons. Due to the great thick­ness of the over­bur­den rocks (more than 30 m) and water sat­u­ra­tion, the site was not rec­om­mend­ed for fur­ther explo­ration. Phos­pho­rite ore and chalk are a min­er­al on Kremenet­s­ka, Syny­chyno-Yaremivs­ka and Mal­okamyshu­vakh squares. The ores of these deposits belong to the yel­low type of phos­pho­rites.

Cement raw materials

Lime­stone, chalk, and cal­care­ous tuff are used as car­bon­ate rocks for cement pro­duc­tion; marl and marly lime­stone are used as car­bon­ate-clay mate­ri­als; and clays of sed­i­men­ta­ry and vol­canic ori­gin are used as clay raw mate­ri­als.

The deci­sive impor­tance of car­bon­ate raw mate­ri­als in select­ing the raw mate­r­i­al base for a cement plant lies in the fact that car­bon­ate rocks (lime­stone, chalk, marl) are not wide­spread every­where. In Ukraine, their shal­low occur­rence is observed only in cer­tain areas. Clay cement raw mate­ri­als are wide­ly dis­trib­uted through­out the coun­try, and the nec­es­sary deposits are usu­al­ly locat­ed near known or explored large deposits of car­bon­ate raw mate­ri­als.

Chalk and Clay

The She­be­lyn­ka chalk and clay deposit is locat­ed in the Bal­ak­li­ia dis­trict of the Kharkiv region. It is sit­u­at­ed on the north­east­ern slope of the Hlazu­ni­vske dome of the She­be­lyn­ka tec­ton­ic uplift. The hydro­ge­o­log­i­cal con­di­tions of the deposit are favor­able for open-pit min­ing. With­in the deposit, there are two aquifers asso­ci­at­ed with Cre­ta­ceous, Pale­o­gene, and Qua­ter­nary sed­i­ments. Ground­wa­ter from Pale­o­gene and Qua­ter­nary sed­i­ments is scarce and drained by deep gul­lies and ravines. Min­er­als for the cement indus­try are chalk and marls of the chalk sys­tem, Pale­o­gene and Qua­ter­nary clays.

The con­tent of harm­ful impu­ri­ties (MgO, SO₃, P₂O₅) does not exceed per­mis­si­ble lim­its.

Clay meets the require­ments for the clay com­po­nent of the cement raw mate­r­i­al mix­ture. The raw mate­r­i­al of the She­be­lin­sky deposit is suit­able for obtain­ing high-strength, tam­pon­age and heat-resis­tant cement and is unsuit­able for white, col­ored and sul­fate-resis­tant cements.

The Kupyan chalk and clay deposit and the Velikoburlut­sk dolomite deposit are also among the large deposits of the Kharkiv region.

Quartz sand

In Ukraine, quartz sand is main­ly used in con­struc­tion and for the pro­duc­tion of glass and sil­i­con. A typ­i­cal exam­ple is the Husariv­ka deposit locat­ed in the Barvinkove dis­trict of the Kharkiv region. The deposit con­sists of two sec­tions: the East­ern and West­ern sec­tions. Sand from the East­ern sec­tion is used as mold­ing mate­r­i­al, while sand from the West­ern sec­tion is used for sil­i­con car­bide pro­duc­tion. The sand stra­ta are high­ly con­sis­tent in both thick­ness and extent. Their thick­ness ranges from 5 m to 24.5 m.

Molding sand

Mold­ing sands are the main com­po­nent used in the pro­duc­tion of foundry molds and cores. In the Kharkiv region, one deposit is cur­rent­ly being devel­oped — the Husariv­ka deposit. The deposit con­tains homo­ge­neous quartz and slight­ly clayey coarse-grained sands with thick­ness­es rang­ing from 7.5 m to 31.7 m. Sands of the Kharkiv For­ma­tion pre­dom­i­nate in the area.

Diatomite

With­in Ukraine, occur­rences of diatomites are known in the Dnipro-Donets Depres­sion and oth­er regions, where they are asso­ci­at­ed with the Cre­ta­ceous sys­tem and Ceno­zoic deposits.

Accord­ing to the State Bal­ance of Min­er­al Resources, one diatomite deposit is reg­is­tered in the Kharkiv region. The Velykyi Burluk diatomite deposit is locat­ed in the Velykyi Burluk dis­trict of the Kharkiv region. The diatomite lay­er occurs among sed­i­ments of the Kharkiv For­ma­tion. It extends over a dis­tance of 3.2 km and has a thick­ness rang­ing from 0.5 m to 14.5 m. At the base of the lay­er lie tripoli rocks that do not meet the require­ments of the cement indus­try. The diatomite reserves have been approved as an active min­er­al addi­tive for cement pro­duc­tion. The deposit is cur­rent­ly not being devel­oped.

Groundwater

The Kharkiv region is among the regions of Ukraine with the largest explored oper­a­tional reserves of ground­wa­ter in absolute terms. Approved reserves amount to 1,047.87 thou­sand m³/day, while the num­ber of wells exceeds 3.1 thou­sand. Min­er­al waters, par­tic­u­lar­ly those from the Kharkiv–Upper Kyiv aquifer, are an impor­tant com­po­nent of the region’s water resources. They are known for their bal­ne­o­log­i­cal val­ue, which is based on a favor­able com­bi­na­tion of key com­po­nents such as sili­cic acid, car­bon diox­ide, cal­ci­um, sodi­um, and mag­ne­sium, with low iron con­tent and a sig­nif­i­cant amount of organ­ic sub­stances.

Sana­to­ri­ums oper­ate in the region, which have sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial in med­ical and health areas thanks to min­er­al waters such as “Rai-Oleniv­ka”, “Roshcha”, “Bermin­vody”, “Berezivs­ki vody” and oth­ers. “Bermin­vody” is a rec­og­nized bal­ne­o­log­i­cal insti­tu­tion of inter­na­tion­al impor­tance. Research on the med­i­c­i­nal prop­er­ties of min­er­al waters in the region con­tin­ues, and the results indi­cate that sim­i­lar sources may be found in oth­er areas of the Kharkiv region.

Most deposits, with the excep­tion of the Shatylivske deposit, are known for the extrac­tion of drink­ing or tech­ni­cal ground­wa­ter. The Shatylivske deposit is the only one with­in the city where min­er­al table water mar­ket­ed as “Kharkivska‑1” is extract­ed. Among the min­er­al waters of the Kharkiv–Upper Kyiv deposits, par­tic­u­lar pop­u­lar­i­ty belongs to the deposits locat­ed on the slopes of the Berezivs­ka ravine, sit­u­at­ed 20 km from Kharkiv.

Berezivs­ka min­er­al water is char­ac­ter­ized by low min­er­al­iza­tion and con­tains bicar­bon­ates, cal­ci­um, mag­ne­sium, as well as iron and metasili­cic acid, which is why it is often com­pared to the min­er­al waters of Shayan. In many dis­tricts of the Kharkiv region, min­er­al waters sim­i­lar to the Berezivs­ki waters have been dis­cov­ered. Poten­tial­ly impor­tant are the sources of radon min­er­al waters near the vil­lage of Petrivske and in the area of the Cher­vonooskil reser­voir, which was affect­ed as a result of the full-scale inva­sion.