The Polta­va region, locat­ed in the cen­tral part of Ukraine, is known not only for its rich his­to­ry and cul­tur­al her­itage, but also for its great diver­si­ty of min­er­al resources. This region, pos­sess­ing sig­nif­i­cant nat­ur­al poten­tial, serves as an impor­tant source of var­i­ous nat­ur­al resources. The unique nat­ur­al con­di­tions of the Polta­va region have con­tributed to the devel­op­ment of numer­ous indus­tries and ener­gy sec­tors, whose fun­da­men­tal com­po­nents are min­er­al resources.

• Fuel min­er­als: nat­ur­al gas, oil, brown coal, and hard coal;
• Metal­lic min­er­als: iron ores;
• Non-metal­lic min­er­als: sands, gran­ite, and loam.

Oil, gas, and condensate

The Polta­va region con­tains 68 hydro­car­bon deposits, locat­ed pre­dom­i­nant­ly in the north­ern and east­ern parts of the region. Oil fields pre­vail in the north­west, while gas and gas-con­den­sate fields are con­cen­trat­ed in the south­east. The Polta­va region accounts for 20–22% of Ukraine’s total oil pro­duc­tion and is con­sid­ered a lead­ing region in oil and gas extrac­tion. Approx­i­mate­ly 40% of Ukrain­ian nat­ur­al gas and every fifth ton of oil with con­den­sate are extract­ed from its sub­sur­face resources.

Dif­fer­ent depths of hydro­car­bon occur­rence con­tribute to the for­ma­tion of var­i­ous types of deposits, pre­dom­i­nant­ly gas-con­den­sate fields. The oil gen­er­al­ly con­tains low lev­els of sul­fur and impu­ri­ties and is used for the pro­duc­tion of organ­ic syn­the­sis prod­ucts. Explo­ration prospects are asso­ci­at­ed with deep deposits occur­ring at depths of 5,500–6,000 meters.

• Gas-con­den­sate fields: Bilske, Abazivske, Roz­pash­nivske, Kote­livske, Solokhivske, and Mashiv­ske deposits.
• Oil-gas-con­den­sate fields: Hlyn­sko-Rozbyshiv­ske, Opish­ni­anske, Yablu­ni­vske, Tymofi­ivske, and Hna­tivske deposits.

The Hlyn­sko-Rozbyshiv­ske oil-gas-con­den­sate field is locat­ed on the bor­der of the Sumy and Polta­va regions, with­in the cen­tral part of the Dnipro-Donets Depres­sion. Dis­cov­ered in the 1950s, it has a com­plex geo­log­i­cal struc­ture char­ac­ter­ized by a cryp­to­di­apir uplift and numer­ous tec­ton­ic folds. The oil and gas accu­mu­la­tions are strat­i­fied and mas­sive-strat­i­fied, with tec­ton­ic seal­ing and litho­log­i­cal traps. The main reser­voirs are sand­stone.

Dur­ing this peri­od, sig­nif­i­cant vol­umes of oil, gas and con­den­sate were pro­duced. Oil, gas and con­den­sate reserves in the field are sig­nif­i­cant. Ini­tial pro­duc­tion reserves of cat­e­gories A+B+C1: oil — 25,275 thou­sand tons; dis­solved gas — 2267 mil­lion m³; gas — 11241 mil­lion m³; con­den­sate — 601 thou­sand tons. The den­si­ty of degassed oil is 838–872 kg/m³. Sul­phur con­tent of petro­le­um 0,21–0,66 wt.%.

The Bilske gas-con­den­sate field is locat­ed in the Zinkiv dis­trict of the Polta­va region, at a dis­tance of 18 km from the town of Zinkiv, in the cen­tral part of the axi­al zone of the Dnipro-Donets Depres­sion on the north­ern slope of the Shylivs­ka Depres­sion.

As a result of the sec­ond stage of explo­ration, the com­mer­cial oil and gas poten­tial of the Low­er Car­bonif­er­ous deposits was con­firmed. Dur­ing this peri­od, eight wells were drilled, pen­e­trat­ing car­bon­ate-ter­rige­nous for­ma­tions rang­ing from Qua­ter­nary deposits down to the Low­er Car­bonif­er­ous (Tour­naisian stage). With­in the Car­bonif­er­ous for­ma­tions, the struc­ture is rep­re­sent­ed by a cryp­to­di­apir­ic brachyan­ti­cline trend­ing north­west. A series of trans­verse and diag­o­nal faults with ampli­tudes of 50–200 m divide it into sev­er­al tec­ton­ic blocks.

Gas-con­den­sate accu­mu­la­tions were iden­ti­fied in Mid­dle Juras­sic, Tri­as­sic, and Low­er Car­bonif­er­ous for­ma­tions. The reser­voirs are sand­stones with high poros­i­ty and per­me­abil­i­ty char­ac­ter­is­tics. Reser­voir poros­i­ty in Juras­sic for­ma­tions reach­es 34%, grad­u­al­ly decreas­ing with depth to 11% in the Low­er Car­bonif­er­ous deposits. Dur­ing the peri­od of field oper­a­tion, 23.1 thou­sand tons of oil and 64 mil­lion m³ of gas were pro­duced. The cur­rent oil recov­ery fac­tor is 0.019.

The Abazivske gas-con­den­sate field, locat­ed in the Polta­va region of Ukraine, is part of the Hlyn­sk-Solokha oil and gas dis­trict with­in the East­ern petro­le­um-bear­ing region. It is sit­u­at­ed in the axi­al zone of the Dnipro-Donets Depres­sion, with­in the Sementsiv­ka-Machukhy uplift group.

The field was dis­cov­ered in 1959 and has been under devel­op­ment since 1979. Gas reserves are esti­mat­ed at 32,985 mil­lion m³, while con­den­sate reserves amount to 2,250 thou­sand tons. Gas pro­duc­tion is main­ly car­ried out from the Upper Ser­pukhov­ian hori­zons, and the field struc­ture is char­ac­ter­ized by com­plex tec­ton­ic fea­tures. Cur­rent­ly, 14 wells are in oper­a­tion, although most of them have been pro­duc­ing for more than 16 years. Future devel­op­ment prospects are asso­ci­at­ed with deep­er reser­voirs locat­ed at depths of 5–7 km.

The Mashiv­ske gas-con­den­sate field belongs to the Mashiv­ka-She­be­lyn­ka gas-bear­ing dis­trict of the East­ern petro­le­um-bear­ing region of Ukraine and is locat­ed in the Polta­va region near the urban-type set­tle­ment of Mashiv­ka.

The field is sit­u­at­ed in the cen­tral part of the axi­al zone of the Dnipro-Donets Depres­sion. Dis­cov­ered in 1952, it is char­ac­ter­ized by a com­plex tec­ton­ic struc­ture and asym­met­ric geom­e­try. The deposits are strat­i­fied or mas­sive-strat­i­fied in form and are gas-bear­ing.

The field has been under devel­op­ment since 1968. Gas reserves amount to 40,060 mil­lion m³, while con­den­sate reserves total 1,431 thou­sand tons. The dis­cov­ery of the field was marked by a gas blowout dur­ing drilling oper­a­tions in 1962.

Coal

The region con­tains a small amount of both hard coal and brown coal. One such occur­rence is locat­ed in the Lub­ny dis­trict of the Polta­va region, near the vil­lages of Tyshky and Zhdany — the Sula-Udayske lig­nite deposit.

The coal of this deposit has char­ac­ter­is­tics sim­i­lar to those of the Dnipro brown coal basin. The thick­ness of coal seams is 3–4 meters, and they occur at depths rang­ing from 15 to 100 meters.

Peat

In the Polta­va region, five peat deposits are known and reg­is­tered in the State Bal­ance of Min­er­al Reserves of Ukraine. Geo­log­i­cal reserves were esti­mat­ed at 343 thou­sand tons. As of 01.01.2018, these deposits were not being exploit­ed.

Iron ores

The Kre­menchuk iron ore dis­trict is locat­ed on the left bank of the Dnipro Riv­er (Polta­va region). It is often asso­ci­at­ed with the Kryvyi Rih basin and is con­sid­ered part of the Kryvyi Rih–Kremenchuk iron ore zone (basin). This ore dis­trict rep­re­sents the north­ern part of the Kryvyi Rih–Kremenchuk struc­tur­al-met­al­lo­genic zone. It forms a belt of meta­mor­phosed fer­rug­i­nous-siliceous rocks and schists, extend­ing in a north-east­ern direc­tion for 45 km, with a width rang­ing from 0.2 to 3.5 km. The Kre­menchuk syn­cline con­sists of four suites of the Kryvyi Rih series. The Sak­sa­han suite (mid­dle, iron-bear­ing) reach­es a thick­ness of up to 1,300 m and is com­posed of five sub-suites of fer­rug­i­nous quartzites sep­a­rat­ed by schist lay­ers. The most ore-rich is the sec­ond (from the bot­tom) sub-suite, with a thick­ness of 40–200 m. In some areas, lin­ear weath­er­ing crusts of brown iron ore com­po­si­tion devel­op on fer­rug­i­nous rocks.

In the region, five deposits are iden­ti­fied: Hor­ish­ni Plavni, Lavrykivske, Yestys­tivske, Bilanivske, and Kre­menchuk, with total reserves of 4,504 mil­lion tons. The first two are being mined by open-pit oper­a­tions of Polta­va Min­ing and Pro­cess­ing Plant, while the remain­ing three are reserve.

Reserves are rep­re­sent­ed by fer­rug­i­nous cummingtonite–magnetite quartzites (1,301.9 mil­lion tons) with an aver­age Fe con­tent of 27.4%, mag­netite quartzites (2,933.9 mil­lion tons) with an aver­age Fe con­tent of 32.8%, and rich iron ores (268.4 mil­lion tons) with an aver­age Fe con­tent of 58.5%. Except for the Kre­menchuk deposit, all oth­ers are being devel­oped by open-pit min­ing.

The Kre­menchuk iron ore dis­trict includes the Hor­ish­ni Plavni and Haleshchy­na ore fields.

The Hor­ish­ny­oplavnyn ore field (south­ern part of the dis­trict) includes (from south to north) the Hor­ish­ny­oplavnyn, Lavrykiv, Yeris­tiv, and Bilaniv deposits of fer­rug­i­nous quartzites with an aver­age Fe con­tent of 32%. The first two deposits are devel­oped by the quar­ries of the Polta­va GZK. Iron ores of this field, as in all ores of the Kryvoriz­ka-Kre­menchuk zone, con­tain ger­ma­ni­um (usu­al­ly 5–6 g/t, in some hori­zons up to 40 g/t). There is also a lay­er deposit of sul­fur pyrite with a thick­ness of 5–6 m, which extends up to 25 km. Com­po­si­tion of pyrites: pyrite (up to 72%), pyrrhotite, siderite, molyb­den­ite, etc.

The Haleshchy­na ore field (north­ern part of the dis­trict) includes the Kre­menchuk (Haleshchy­na) deposit with hematite–martite rich ores (aver­age Fe con­tent 58.2%) and oxi­dized fer­rug­i­nous quartzites (aver­age total iron con­tent 36.4%). The Vasynivske, Kharchenkivske, and Manuilivske deposits of low-grade fer­rug­i­nous quartzites have been pre­lim­i­nar­i­ly explored for under­ground min­ing.

Fore­cast resources of the Kre­menchuk dis­trict down to a depth of 1,500 m are esti­mat­ed at 35 bil­lion tons, includ­ing 400 mil­lion tons of high-grade ores.

The Polta­va Min­ing and Pro­cess­ing Plant (Polta­va GOK), with a design capac­i­ty of 34 mil­lion tons of ore per year, is secured with explored reserves for 60 years. In 2000, the plant extract­ed 9.781 mil­lion tons of mag­netite quartzites and 6.223 mil­lion tons of cummingtonite–magnetite quartzites, pro­cess­ing them into con­cen­trates and pel­lets.

Magnesium salts

Mag­ne­sium salt resources are also present with­in the region. They are asso­ci­at­ed with the inner parts of large salt-bear­ing depres­sions (Koshelivka–Vertiivka, Srib­ni­an­ka, and Orchyt­sia depres­sions). The main bischof­ite resources of Ukraine exceed 50 km³ and are con­fined to the Kram­a­torsk suite of the Dnipro-Donets Depres­sion, where a bischof­ite lay­er (4–30 m thick) occurs at depths of 1,800–2,600 m.

The Zatu­rynske deposit is locat­ed with­in the Orchyt­sia depres­sion, where a thick (14.5–24 m) bischof­ite hori­zon has been iden­ti­fied over an area of about 200 hectares at depths of 2,856–2,678 m. The min­er­al com­po­si­tion (%) is as fol­lows: bischof­ite — 88.47; halite — 8.53; kieserite — 1.87; gyp­sum — 0.82; oth­er salts — 0.31; with an aver­age bromine con­tent of 0.48%. The total salin­i­ty of the brine is 371.89 g/L. Bal­ance reserves of raw bischof­ite ore (cat­e­go­ry C₂) amount to 19 mil­lion tons, while brine reserves are esti­mat­ed at 720 m³/month (cat­e­go­ry C₁) and 1,450 m³/month (cat­e­go­ry C₂).

Sand

Con­struc­tion sands in Polta­va region are typ­i­cal­ly asso­ci­at­ed with allu­vial deposits of Qua­ter­nary ter­races, and in some cas­es with deposits of the Novopetrivs­ka Suite (Miocene) and the Berez­ka Suite (Oligocene).

Admin­is­tra­tive­ly, the Vatazhkov­ka area is locat­ed in Polta­va dis­trict of Polta­va region, approx­i­mate­ly 300 meters north-east of the north-east­ern bound­ary of Zavorosk­lo vil­lage, on the left bank of the Vorskla Riv­er.

From a geo­mor­pho­log­i­cal per­spec­tive, this ter­ri­to­ry belongs to the cen­tral part of the Dnipro Left-Bank Plain. It has a gen­tle slope toward the Dnipro Riv­er and is dis­sect­ed by val­leys of its trib­u­taries. The main geo­mor­pho­log­i­cal fea­tures include a ter­raced plain of Neo­gene ori­gin and mod­ern riv­er val­leys.

In terms of geostruc­ture, the area lies with­in the Dnipro–Donets Depres­sion. Its tec­ton­ic struc­ture is close­ly relat­ed to the gen­er­al tec­ton­ic frame­work of the depres­sion, includ­ing the Pre­cam­bri­an crys­talline base­ment and sed­i­men­ta­ry deposits of var­i­ous geo­log­i­cal peri­ods.

The prospec­tive pro­duc­tive hori­zon con­sists of sandy-clay sed­i­ments of mod­ern Qua­ter­nary allu­vi­um. The absolute ele­va­tion of the upper bound­ary of the sand lay­er varies from 118 to 115 meters. The esti­mat­ed aver­age thick­ness of the min­er­al deposit is about 20 meters.

The Kolo­mats­ka quartz sand area is locat­ed 1.5 km north of the urban-type set­tle­ment of Chutove in Polta­va dis­trict, Polta­va region, on the right bank of the Kolo­mak Riv­er, approx­i­mate­ly 75 m from its riverbed, on the first above-flood­plain ter­race. The sur­face of the deposit shows a decrease in ele­va­tion from the north­west to the south­east, from 102 to 96 meters.

Geo­graph­i­cal­ly, the Kolo­mats­ka area belongs to the axi­al part of the Dnipro–Donets Depres­sion, which deter­mines the deep occur­rence of crys­talline base­ment rocks (up to 3,000 m) and the pres­ence of thick sed­i­men­ta­ry deposits of the Pale­o­gene, Neo­gene, and Qua­ter­nary peri­ods.

The Chutove quartz sand deposit is rep­re­sent­ed by Upper Qua­ter­nary allu­vial lay­ers of the first above-flood­plain ter­race of the Kolo­mak Riv­er. The fine- to medi­um-grained sands are typ­i­cal­ly yel­low­ish-gray or gray in col­or and occur in lay­ers that may be water-sat­u­rat­ed. Their thick­ness varies from 3.6 to 7.5 meters, with an aver­age of 5.5 meters, and they are dis­trib­uted in bod­ies up to 1,500 m in length and up to 850 m in width.

Granite and migmatite

The Takhtai gran­ite deposit is a small dome-shaped uplift, elon­gat­ed from south­east to north­west over a dis­tance of 650 m and with a width of 500 m. Its ele­vat­ed posi­tion is char­ac­ter­ized by rel­a­tive relief heights rang­ing from 42.8 to 63.3 m, with slopes descend­ing steeply in all direc­tions.

This deposit area is locat­ed with­in the cen­tral part of the Ukrain­ian Crys­talline Shield. The geo­log­i­cal struc­ture of the Takhtai deposit includes Pre­cam­bri­an crys­talline rocks, as well as over­ly­ing Pale­o­gene and Qua­ter­nary deposits.

The use­ful min­er­al resources of this deposit con­sist of unal­tered and weath­ered pla­giogran­ites and migmatites of the Kirovohrad–Zhytomyr com­plex, intrud­ed by thin veins of aplite–pegmatoid pink gran­ites. The pla­giogran­ites are dark gray or light gray in col­or, with fine- to medi­um-grained tex­tures, and the rock mass is often band­ed. The main min­er­als include pla­gio­clase, quartz, and biotite, occa­sion­al­ly amphi­bole, as well as acces­so­ry min­er­als such as apatite, zir­con, sphene, epi­dote, ilmenite, and leu­cox­ene. The pink aplite–pegmatoid gran­ites con­sist of quartz, feldspar, and a small amount of biotite. The crys­talline rocks are frac­tured, and their aver­age thick­ness is 52.7 meters.

The Soloshyno gran­ite and migmatite deposit is locat­ed on the left bank of the Dnipro Riv­er, approx­i­mate­ly 3 km south of the vil­lage of Soloshyno, which belongs to the Hor­ish­ni Plavni urban com­mu­ni­ty in Kre­menchuk dis­trict, Polta­va region. The near­est set­tle­ments include the vil­lages of Ozera, Prosianykiv­ka, and Pereval­ochna.

In dif­fer­ent parts of the deposit, Qua­ter­nary sed­i­ments are wide­spread, con­sist­ing of a soil–vegetation lay­er, loess-like loams, sands, and clays.

The aver­age thick­ness of over­bur­den rocks at the Soloshyno deposit is 14.7 meters. The max­i­mum thick­ness is observed in the south­east­ern part, while the min­i­mum occurs in the cen­tral area.

The use­ful min­er­al resource of the deposit con­sists of gran­ites, migmatites, and occa­sion­al­ly includes inter­lay­ers of peg­ma­toid rocks. Its phys­i­cal con­di­tion is divid­ed into weath­ered, par­tial­ly weath­ered, and fresh crys­talline rocks.

The min­er­alog­i­cal com­po­si­tion of the gran­ites includes pla­gio­clase (50–75%), micro­cline (15%), quartz (12–40%), and biotite (1–12%). The migmatites con­tain pla­gio­clase (45–65%), micro­cline (1–12%), quartz (25–45%), and biotite (2–10%).

Loam

The Petrivsko-Romenske deposit is locat­ed in the cen­tral part of the Left-Bank Upland, which is a gen­tly rolling plain and a con­tin­u­a­tion of the south-west­ern slope of the Mid­dle Russ­ian Upland. The deposit is sit­u­at­ed on the right bank of the Khorol Riv­er, a left trib­u­tary of the Dnipro, approx­i­mate­ly 2.2 km east of the riv­er, with­in the Polta­va plain. The over­all sur­face slope of the deposit is from the north­east to the south­west, with absolute sur­face ele­va­tions decreas­ing from 164 to 157 meters.

From a plan­ning per­spec­tive, the deposit has the shape of an irreg­u­lar poly­gon elon­gat­ed in the north–south direc­tion. Its aver­age dimen­sions are 340 m by 140 m, and a quar­ry cov­er­ing an area of 0.6 hectares is locat­ed in its cen­tral part.

The main min­er­al resource of the deposit con­sists of Upper Qua­ter­nary loams of var­i­ous colors—fawn, pale yel­low, and yellow—with a thick­ness rang­ing from 5.0 to 11.8 meters. The thick­ness of the fawn loam varies from 2.1 to 3.4 m, pale yel­low from 0.5 to 4.0 m, and yel­low from 1.5 to 8.7 m. Over­bur­den rocks are rep­re­sent­ed by a soil–vegetation lay­er with a thick­ness of 0.0 to 0.8 m.

Accord­ing to the State Bal­ance of Min­er­al Reserves of Ukraine, as of Jan­u­ary 1, 2022, the Petrivsko-Romenske deposit con­tains loam reserves of 268 thou­sand m³ in cat­e­go­ry C₁.

Groundwater

In most dis­tricts of the Polta­va Plain, the first deep ground­wa­ter hori­zon is locat­ed beneath water­sheds at depths rang­ing from 2 to 18 meters. Min­er­al waters of Polta­va Oblast are rep­re­sent­ed by waters with­out spe­cif­ic com­po­nents (7 deposits) and waters with spe­cif­ic com­po­nents (3 deposits, 8 wells). The largest min­er­al water deposits in Polta­va Oblast are con­sid­ered to be Myrhorod, Novosanzharsk, and Demy­di­v­ka.

The Myrhorod dis­trict stands out for its water avail­abil­i­ty and devel­op­ment poten­tial with­in Polta­va Oblast. At the same time, this area has the longest his­to­ry of using recre­ation­al bal­ne­o­log­i­cal resources in the region. Chem­i­cal­ly, the water is hydro­car­bon­ate-type with a com­plex cation com­po­si­tion, with min­er­al­iza­tion lev­els of 0.4–0.7 g/dm³. It con­tains bio­log­i­cal­ly active com­po­nents and ele­ments such as Na, Ca, I, Si, Mg, Fe, F, Cl, Cu, and Br.

In 1995, the Zinkiv min­er­al water deposit known as “Tashan” was dis­cov­ered with­in the ter­ri­to­ry of the “Sos­novyi Bir” sana­to­ri­um. The well was drilled to depths of 1138–1165 meters. The extract­ed water belongs to mod­er­ate­ly min­er­al­ized chloride–sodium waters and is trans­par­ent, col­or­less, with no smell or taste. Accord­ing to its chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion, total min­er­al­iza­tion, and microele­ment con­tent, it is clas­si­fied as min­er­al water with­out spe­cif­ic com­po­nents or prop­er­ties. The water is char­ac­ter­ized by low gas con­tent.

The min­er­al water deposit in Demy­di­v­ka, char­ac­ter­ized by a chlo­ride-sodi­um com­po­si­tion and low min­er­al­iza­tion (6.8–8.5 g/dm³), with an extrac­tion depth rang­ing from 74 to 115 m, is one of the largest in the Polta­va region. A dis­tin­guish­ing fea­ture of the Demydivske‑1 deposit com­pared to the first one is its high bromine con­tent and mod­er­ate min­er­al­iza­tion rang­ing from 19.8 to 31.5 g/dm³. The depth of the aquifer in these deposits ranges from 123 to 176 meters. The for­ma­tion of these deposits is main­ly caused by riv­er activ­i­ty, which pro­vides drainage, and the pres­ence of tec­ton­ic dis­tur­bances, par­tic­u­lar­ly those asso­ci­at­ed with salt domes.

The min­er­al resources of Polta­va region, par­tic­u­lar­ly oil and gas reserves and iron ores, have sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial for the eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and indus­tri­al growth of Ukraine. Their pres­ence sup­ports the devel­op­ment of min­ing and met­al­lur­gi­cal indus­tries and serves as an impor­tant raw mate­r­i­al base for var­i­ous sec­tors, includ­ing con­struc­tion, chem­i­cal, and light indus­tries. These resources con­tribute to over­all eco­nom­ic growth and help improve the liv­ing stan­dards of the pop­u­la­tion in the region and the coun­try as a whole.