The Khmel­nyt­skyi region is rich in var­i­ous non-metal­lic min­er­al resources, pri­mar­i­ly nat­ur­al con­struc­tion mate­ri­als. This is facil­i­tat­ed both by the crys­talline rocks of the Ukrain­ian Shield and by the sed­i­men­ta­ry deposits of its west­ern slope. At the same time, the region is almost devoid of metal­lic min­er­al resources, while peat deposits are present among the com­bustible min­er­als.

To date, 260 min­er­al deposits have been pre­lim­i­nar­i­ly and thor­ough­ly explored, of which around 100 are cur­rent­ly being exploit­ed, most of them being of local impor­tance. Many deposits are aban­doned or sub­ject to ille­gal extrac­tion activ­i­ties. In addi­tion to the offi­cial­ly reg­is­tered deposits, there are more than a hun­dred ille­gal min­ing sites for nat­ur­al resources.

Nat­ur­al stone con­struc­tion mate­ri­als in the ter­ri­to­ry of the Khmel­nyt­skyi region are main­ly rep­re­sent­ed by Pre­cam­bri­an crys­talline rocks of the Chud­no­vo-Berdy­chiv com­plex and sed­i­men­ta­ry for­ma­tions, includ­ing Neo­gene and Sil­uri­an lime­stones. In addi­tion, sand­stones asso­ci­at­ed with Upper Pro­tero­zoic, Ordovi­cian, Sil­uri­an, Cre­ta­ceous, and Neo­gene deposits have lim­it­ed dis­tri­b­u­tion with­in the region.

Peat

In the Khmel­nyt­skyi Oblast, 171 peat deposits have been iden­ti­fied with total geo­log­i­cal reserves exceed­ing 75 mil­lion tons. The State Bal­ance Reg­is­ter includes only 44 deposits, of which 16 are clas­si­fied as reserve deposits with total reserves in cat­e­gories A+B+C₁ amount­ing to approx­i­mate­ly 14 mil­lion tons. In addi­tion, anoth­er 10 deposits are con­sid­ered promis­ing for explo­ration activ­i­ties, with approved reserves of 5.2 mil­lion tons.

All deposits are locat­ed with­in the ter­ri­to­ries of the Shep­etivskyi dis­trict and Khmel­nyt­skyi dis­trict, main­ly in the val­leys of the Zbruch, South­ern Buh, Buzhok, Khomo­ra, Ikva, Horyn, Sluch, Riv, Riv­ets, and oth­er rivers of the region. The region does not con­tain large or medi­um-sized peat deposits. The reserves of the largest deposits do not exceed 4.3 mil­lion tons.

One of the largest is the Bezymi­anske deposit, locat­ed in the Chornoost­riv ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­mu­ni­ty, with reserves of 3.1 mil­lion tons. The Kutyan­ka-Viliya deposit in the Berez­div ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­mu­ni­ty con­tains 4.3 mil­lion tons, although only 872 thou­sand tons of these reserves are locat­ed with­in the Khmel­nyt­skyi region, while the remain­der lies with­in the ter­ri­to­ry of the Rivne Oblast. The Vov­chok I–II deposits in the Der­azh­ni­an­s­ka ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­mu­ni­ty con­tain 1.8 mil­lion tons of reserves, the Ploskivske deposit in the Hvardi­iska ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­mu­ni­ty con­tains 1.3 mil­lion tons, the Vovkivske deposit in the Teofipol ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­mu­ni­ty con­tains 1.0 mil­lion tons, while the Rudavske deposit in the Lety­chiv ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­mu­ni­ty and the Antoninske deposit in the Antoniny ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­mu­ni­ty con­tain reserves of 1.0 and 1.1 mil­lion tons respec­tive­ly.

Graphite

The Bur­tynske graphite deposit, locat­ed with­in the Volyn megablock north­east of the city of Shep­etiv­ka in the Khmel­nyt­skyi region, is asso­ci­at­ed with a belt of graphite-bear­ing rocks of the Pro­tero­zoic Teteriv Series. The deposit was explored in detail to a depth of 90 meters, reveal­ing an ore body with a thick­ness of 49 meters. The deposit is sit­u­at­ed with­in the Mykhail­i­ut­ska ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­mu­ni­ty, where detailed geo­log­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tions have already been com­plet­ed.

The total ore reserves of this deposit, explored accord­ing to indus­tri­al cat­e­gories (A+B+C₁), amount to 113.39 mil­lion tons, rep­re­sent­ing approx­i­mate­ly 58% of all ore reserves in Ukraine. The reserves of crys­talline graphite amount to 6.584 mil­lion tons, or 3.36% of the total Ukrain­ian reserves. At the Horod­ni­avs­ka sec­tion, which forms part of the deposit, all ore reserves (113.39 mil­lion tons) and graphite reserves (6.584 mil­lion tons) have been ful­ly explored accord­ing to indus­tri­al cat­e­gories.

Saponite

The Khmel­nyt­skyi region is the only region in Ukraine where explored deposits of saponite clays are found. These unique nat­ur­al for­ma­tions con­sti­tute an entire province of ben­tonite raw mate­ri­als with dis­tinc­tive prop­er­ties. Saponite is a hydrat­ed mag­ne­sium alu­mi­nosil­i­cate with a lay­ered struc­ture. It is com­mon­ly dis­trib­uted with­in the weath­er­ing zones of mag­ne­sian rocks and meta­so­mat­ic dolomi­tized lime­stones. The reserves of the Khmel­nyt­skyi group of saponite deposits exceed 100 mil­lion tons and are con­cen­trat­ed on the west­ern slope of the Ukrain­ian Shield, par­tic­u­lar­ly the alu­minum vari­ety of saponite found near the vil­lages of Tashky and Var­variv­ka in the Slavu­ta dis­trict of the Khmel­nyt­skyi region.

Glauconite

In addi­tion, sig­nif­i­cant glau­conite deposits are locat­ed in the south­ern part of the Khmel­nyt­skyi region, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in the Vinkovets dis­trict. Glau­conite pos­sess­es excel­lent cation-exchange and sorp­tion prop­er­ties. The Karachaivske deposit has been pre­lim­i­nar­i­ly explored, while the Adamivske‑1 and Adamivske‑2 deposits are locat­ed in the Yarmolyntsi dis­trict. At the Karachaivske deposit, sand reserves amount to approx­i­mate­ly 400 mil­lion tons, with a glau­conite con­tent of 60–70%. The reserves of the Adamivske‑2 deposit are esti­mat­ed at 30 mil­lion tons, with a glau­conite con­tent of up to 50%. Cur­rent­ly, only the Adamivske‑2 deposit is being com­mer­cial­ly devel­oped by pri­vate enter­pris­es and LLC NVKP “Eko­resurs”.

Accord­ing to var­i­ous spe­cial­ists, the fore­cast­ed glau­conite resources of the Mid­dle Dni­ester region range from 1 to 3 bil­lion tons, with an aver­age glau­conite con­tent of 50–70%. Deposits of glau­conite sands have been iden­ti­fied near the vil­lages of Mat­siorsk, Brailiv­ka, Struha, Kucha, Antoniv, Kru­ti Brody, and oth­er loca­tions. The deposits occur at depths rang­ing from 0.5 to 16 meters, while the pro­duc­tive lay­er thick­ness varies between 3 and 16 meters.

Gypsum

With­in the region, gyp­sum deposits are devel­oped main­ly in the south­west­ern part and are asso­ci­at­ed with Neo­gene sed­i­ments. They extend with­in a rel­a­tive­ly nar­row belt stretch­ing along the val­ley of the Zbruch Riv­er. The gyp­sum stra­ta have been revealed by bore­holes near the vil­lages of Ivankiv, Verkhnie Kryvche, and oth­ers. Along the val­leys of the Zbruch, Nichla­va, and Tsy­han­s­ka rivers, the gyp­sum lay­ers reach the sur­face through deep ravines. With­in the region, the gyp­sum stra­ta occur almost hor­i­zon­tal­ly with a slight incli­na­tion. The thick­ness of the Tyras For­ma­tion deposits is vari­able and ranges from 4 to 35 meters.

The gyp­sum zone with­in the region con­tains very large reserves of gyp­sum, but min­ing and tech­ni­cal con­di­tions allow open pit min­ing only on rel­a­tive­ly small, most depressed areas of the plateau slope. Gyp­sum is used for the pro­duc­tion of vis­cous sub­stances, for cast­ing gyp­sum boards, blocks, for obtain­ing arti­fi­cial mar­ble, as a fac­ing mate­r­i­al, etc.

Limestone

Lime­stone deposits are wide­spread through­out the Khmel­nyt­skyi region. More than 20 deposits have been iden­ti­fied, and over half of them are active­ly exploit­ed. Of par­tic­u­lar impor­tance are the out­crops of Sil­uri­an lime­stones locat­ed with­in the val­leys of the Dnis­ter Riv­er, Zbruch Riv­er (Zhvanchyk), Smotrych Riv­er, Ter­na­va Riv­er, and Stu­denyt­sia Riv­er. These deposits are mined by open-pit meth­ods near the city of Kami­anets-Podil­skyi, as well as near the vil­lages of Vely­ka Slo­bid­ka, Ustia, and oth­er set­tle­ments.

Neo­gene lime­stones of the Tovtry Ridge are also extract­ed in quar­ries near the set­tle­ments of Zakup­ne and Smotrych, as well as near the vil­lages of Ivakhivt­si, Nyhyn, Ver­b­ka, Pryvorot­tia, and Humentsi. These mate­ri­als are used for lime burn­ing, crushed stone pro­duc­tion, fac­ing tiles, wall blocks, dec­o­ra­tive prod­ucts, and cement man­u­fac­tur­ing. Raw mate­ri­als from the Humentsi deposit are exten­sive­ly used by the Kami­anets-Podil­skyi Cement Plant. Lime­stones extract­ed in oth­er dis­tricts are main­ly used to sat­is­fy local con­struc­tion needs. In addi­tion, Neo­gene lime­stones of the reef ridge and hor­i­zon­tal­ly lay­ered marine sed­i­ments may serve as saw stone and are suit­able for con­struc­tion pur­pos­es. The extrac­tion of such lime­stones is car­ried out at the Pryvoro­tivske deposit.

Granite

Gran­ite deposits (pre­dom­i­nant­ly gray vari­eties) are main­ly con­cen­trat­ed in the Shep­etivskyi dis­rict, Polon­skyi dis­trict, Starokos­tiantynivskyi dis­trict, and Slavu­ta dis­trict, where a num­ber of large open-pit quar­ries are locat­ed. The total gran­ite reserves reach approx­i­mate­ly 230–250 mil­lion m³. Gran­ite is main­ly processed into crushed stone for road con­struc­tion.

At the Popivt­si deposit in the Lety­chiv ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­mu­ni­ty, dark-gray with a green­ish tint, fine- and medi­um-grained gran­ites of the Berdy­chiv com­plex (Low­er Pro­tero­zoic) are exposed. These rocks are suit­able for dec­o­ra­tive fac­ing prod­ucts, wall stone, and crushed stone pro­duc­tion. The reserves amount to 6,517 thou­sand m³. The deposit is rec­om­mend­ed for fur­ther explo­ration if there is indus­tri­al demand.

The Mukharivske deposit in the Berez­div ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­mu­ni­ty is rep­re­sent­ed by pink, pink­ish-brown, and lilac-red medi­um-grained gran­ites of the Kirovohrad–Zhytomyr com­plex (Low­er Pro­tero­zoic). The dec­o­ra­tive qual­i­ties of the rocks are high; they pol­ish well, and sam­ples show no voids or edge crum­bling. The rocks are also suit­able for con­struc­tion crushed stone and rub­ble stone. Reserves exceed 2.7 mil­lion m³.

At the Sudylkivske deposit in the Sudylkiv ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­mu­ni­ty, cur­rent­ly oper­at­ed by LLC Shep­etiv­ka gran­ite quar­ry “Pronex” for crushed stone and rub­ble pro­duc­tion, the suit­abil­i­ty of Low­er Pro­tero­zoic gra­n­odi­or­ites of the Osnyt­sia com­plex has also been con­firmed for dec­o­ra­tive fac­ing prod­ucts and arti­fi­cial stone man­u­fac­tur­ing. The block yield is 30%. The rocks are dark gray to pink­ish-gray, medi­um-grained, mas­sive with a por­phyrit­ic struc­ture. Reserves amount to C₂ cat­e­go­ry – 2,000 thou­sand m³ and P₁ – 8,500 thou­sand m³.

Kaolin

Kaolin is a light-col­ored clay min­er­al asso­ci­at­ed with the weath­er­ing prod­ucts of gran­ites. Indus­tri­al deposits of kaolin are wide­spread in the north­east­ern part of Khmel­nyt­skyi region. The known deposits include the Sudy­montske and Kupynetske deposits in Shep­etiv­ka dis­trict, as well as the May­dan-Volianske and Bur­tynske deposits in Polonne dis­trict. Local kaolin is used for the pro­duc­tion of refrac­to­ry bricks, chamotte pow­der, etc.

The min­er­al com­po­si­tion of kaolins deter­mines their fields of appli­ca­tion and eco­nom­ic via­bil­i­ty and depends pri­mar­i­ly on the com­po­si­tion of the par­ent rocks. The dom­i­nant rock-form­ing min­er­al is kaoli­n­ite, the con­tent of which in pri­ma­ry kaolins varies sig­nif­i­cant­ly, most often account­ing for 55–60% of the rock mass. In some cas­es, kaoli­n­ite forms deposits of pure kaoli­n­ite clays (Palankivske near the Vap­niar­ka sta­tion).

Brick and tile raw materials

With­in Khmel­nyt­skyi region, the raw mate­ri­als for the pro­duc­tion of bricks, tiles, ceram­ics, and oth­er prod­ucts are rep­re­sent­ed by Qua­ter­nary loams and Neo­gene clays. Clay min­er­als of the Sar­ma­t­ian stage are wide­ly devel­oped in the cen­tral, west­ern, and south­west­ern parts of the region; in the north they occur in iso­lat­ed patch­es. Their out­crops are found along riv­er escarp­ments, ravines, and gul­lies. The clays are most­ly dense and plas­tic, some­times thin-bed­ded and slaty, con­tain­ing mica and glau­conite. Their col­or is pre­dom­i­nant­ly gray with yel­low­ish, green, and brown­ish shades; occa­sion­al­ly, black inter­lay­ers occur due to organ­ic mat­ter. The thick­ness of Neo­gene clays reach­es up to 33 m in the Kol­ubaivske deposit.

Qua­ter­nary deposits, rep­re­sent­ed by loess-like loams and brown clays, are almost uni­ver­sal­ly dis­trib­uted and form a blan­ket cov­er over old­er rocks. Their thick­ness ranges from 1 to 23 m. These rocks are wide­spread and eas­i­ly acces­si­ble for extrac­tion, which is why most coarse ceram­ic pro­duc­tion enter­pris­es use this raw mate­r­i­al. The tech­nol­o­gy of coarse ceram­ic pro­duc­tion allows the use of clays and loams of dif­fer­ent com­po­si­tion and prop­er­ties due to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of pre­lim­i­nary mechan­i­cal pro­cess­ing and blend­ing with oth­er raw mate­ri­als.

In the region, there are about 80 deposits of loess-like loams and clays, on the basis of which a num­ber of brick and tile fac­to­ries oper­ate.

Sand

Sand deposits are wide­spread across all dis­tricts of the Khmel­nyt­skyi region and are main­ly of con­struc­tion sig­nif­i­cance. They are used as a filler in con­struc­tion mor­tars, as an inert com­po­nent in con­crete and rein­forced con­crete, and for the pro­duc­tion of auto­claved aer­at­ed con­crete prod­ucts, sil­i­cate bricks, and oth­er build­ing mate­ri­als. The most exten­sive deposits are locat­ed in the Slavu­ta dis­trict, includ­ing the Kru­peckе, Tsvi­tochskе, and Slavutа deposits. Quartz sands from the Slavu­ta deposit are used in glass pro­duc­tion.

Also con­tains deposits of oth­er non-metal­lic min­er­als such as dolomites and tripoli, espe­cial­ly in the Kami­anets-Podil­skyi dis­trict, as well as minor occur­rences of flu­o­rite and phos­pho­rites. The high­est con­cen­tra­tions of phos­pho­rites have been iden­ti­fied in the Dunaivt­si dis­trict, Nova Ushyt­sia dis­trict, Vinkivt­si dis­trict, and Yarmolyntsi dis­trict; how­ev­er, their indus­tri­al sig­nif­i­cance has not yet been con­firmed.

Marble onyx

In the Vin­nykivt­si ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­mu­ni­ty of Khmel­nyt­skyi region, the unique Kaliusytske deposit of mar­ble onyx has been explored; it is the only one in Ukraine. Its reserves under cat­e­go­ry C₂ amount to 213 tons. The geo­log­i­cal sec­tion of the deposit con­sists of rocks belong­ing to the Upper Pro­tero­zoic, Ceno­man­ian, Baden­ian, Sar­ma­t­ian and Anthro­po­gene peri­ods. The main onyx occur­rences are con­cen­trat­ed with­in a thick­ness of shell-bear­ing and oolitic lime­stones of the Low­er Sar­ma­t­ian, which are cut by numer­ous frac­tures of dif­fer­ent ori­en­ta­tions.

Two main types of mar­ble onyx are dis­tin­guished at the deposit: fine-crys­talline and coarse-crys­talline. The first vari­ety has shades from light to dark brown, with a char­ac­ter­is­tic radi­al-ray tex­ture and wavy-band­ed pat­tern that is well translu­cent to depth. Com­mer­cial dense zones of such veins reach lengths of 1–1.5 m, alter­nat­ing with non-com­mer­cial zones con­tain­ing cracks and cav­i­ties. The sec­ond type of mar­ble onyx is char­ac­ter­ized by a light yel­low col­or, with pos­si­ble alter­na­tion of hon­ey-yel­low and light-brown bands. It has a less expres­sive tex­ture and is poor­ly translu­cent. The onyx from this deposit is eas­i­ly processed, can be pol­ished to a mir­ror-like gloss, has an ele­gant dec­o­ra­tive pat­tern, and is an ide­al mate­r­i­al for stone-cut­ting indus­tries. It is used for the pro­duc­tion of fac­ing mate­ri­als for inte­ri­ors, artis­tic prod­ucts, and dec­o­ra­tive items.

In addi­tion, in Khmel­nyt­skyi region there are also the Dunaivt­si and Nova Ushyt­sia fields of mar­ble onyx occur­rences, which include Demkivskyi, Myt­sivskyi, Kravchyn­skyi, Suprunk­ivskyi, and oth­er show­ings.

Mineral waters

In the ter­ri­to­ry of Khmel­nyt­skyi region, there are sig­nif­i­cant resources of min­er­al and table waters. Between 1974 and 2004, 12 min­er­al water deposits were iden­ti­fied, includ­ing the Zbruchanske, Makivske, Zay­chykivske, Volochyske, Muk­shynske, Kamyanske, Teofipolske, Kami­anets-Podil­skе, Polonske, Shep­etivske, Kra­sylivske, and Volytske deposits.

Accord­ing to chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion, the min­er­al waters of the region include hydro­car­bon­ate and chlo­ride-hydro­car­bon­ate sodi­um waters, chlo­ride sodi­um bromine waters of high min­er­al­iza­tion, chlo­ride cal­ci­um-sodi­um bromine weak brines, weak­ly min­er­al­ized radon waters, and weak­ly min­er­al­ized car­bon dioxide–radon waters. Table waters are hydro­car­bon­ate types with var­i­ous cation com­po­si­tions. They are used for med­ical treat­ment and indus­tri­al bot­tling.

The most thor­ough­ly stud­ied min­er­al waters of Khmel­nyt­skyi region are the so-called “Naf­tu­sia-type” waters. Their total explored reserves amount to 1,155 m³/day, while approved reserves by the State Com­mis­sion for Min­er­al Reserves of Ukraine (GKZ) are 732 m³/day. The total pro­duc­tion vol­ume of “Naf­tu­sia-type” waters in the region exceeds the reserves of the Truskavets resort area by 45 times under con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion.

The main prob­lem in the indus­tri­al bot­tling of min­er­al waters is that they are not bot­tled at the extrac­tion site but trans­port­ed over dis­tances exceed­ing 100 km to pro­cess­ing plants. Dur­ing trans­porta­tion, the water los­es its bal­ne­o­log­i­cal prop­er­ties.

Thus, the com­po­si­tion and scale of min­er­al resources in Khmel­nyt­skyi region con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of the con­struc­tion mate­ri­als indus­try, where some enter­pris­es oper­ate not only on the local mar­ket but also sup­ply prod­ucts beyond the region. The avail­abil­i­ty of nat­ur­al resources cre­ates oppor­tu­ni­ties for fur­ther expan­sion of this sec­tor; how­ev­er, increas­ing extrac­tion requires a bal­anced approach due to envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion needs, espe­cial­ly in the Dni­ester area and the Tovtry region.