Ukraine has announced a tender to conclude a production sharing agreement (PSA) for the Dobra lithium deposit (Kirovohrad region) to prospect, extract and enrich lithium, niobium, rubidium, tantalum, cesium, beryllium, tungsten and gold for a period of 50 years.
According to a report in the Uriadovyi Kurier newspaper and on the website of the Ministry of Economy, the minimum investment for exploration is the equivalent of $12 million, and for the organization of mining and processing of lithium-containing minerals and other metallic minerals – $167 million, but the final obligations are determined by the results of the tender. The total area of the site is 17.07 square kilometers, the deadline for submitting applications for participation in the tender is December 12, 2025, and the participation fee is UAH 0.5 million.
According to the terms, the maximum share of compensation products that will reimburse the investor for its costs is 70% of the total output until the investor’s costs are fully reimbursed, while the state’s share in profitable products should be at least 4-6%.
The Ministry of Economy clarified to Interfax-Ukraine that comparing such a share of the state in profitable products with a similar indicator for oil and gas PSAs, where it is significantly higher, is not correct, as this is the first PSA in the history of Ukraine for metal ores.
It is noted that the reserves and resources of lithium ores at the site were approved by decisions at the end of 2017 and in 2018 in the amount of C2 and P1 categories – 1 million 218.14 thousand tons (average Li2O content of 1.37%) and P2 – 70.6 thousand tons (average Li2O content of 1.43%).
Separately, the State Commission of Ukraine for Mineral Resources (SCR) noted the presence of prospective and inferred resources of associated mineral components (P1+P2) in lithium ores at Dobra: Ta2O5 – 4.75 thousand tons; Nb2O5 – 8.24 thousand tons; Rb2O5 – 104.07 thousand tons; BeO – 22.08 thousand tons; SnO2 – 4.46 thousand tons and Cs2O – 7.97 thousand tons.
“In addition, by the protocol dated 31.07.2002 No. 35, the resources of cat. P2 for the Novostankuvatske manifestation were estimated: Ta2O5 – 1414.22 tons (0.0127-0.0134%); Nb2O5 – 1734.5 tons (0.0163%); Li2O – 85196.1 tons (0.7541%); Rb2O5 – 9859.3 tons; Cs2O – 1493.6 tons; BeO – 3588.9 tons; SnO2 – 447.9 tons; WO3 – 8862.3 tons (cat. P3; 0.177%); at the Tashlykskoye ore occurrence: Ta2O5 – 480.32 tons (0.0106-0.0854%); Li2O – 13,596.4 tons (0.6291%); Rb2O5 – 1371.9 tons; Cs2O – 345.4 tons; BeO – 447.4 tons; SnO2 – 106.9 tons; Nb2O5 – 903.0 tons (0.0244%); Lutkivske deposit: WO3 – 2292.4 t (cat. P3; 0.101-0.378%); Kontaktovoye ore occurrence: Au – 2.05 t (4.08 g/ton); on the Stankuvatskoye ore occurrence: Au – 1.78 tons (1.3-2.5 g/t). For the Severostankuvatskoye ore occurrence, the operationally estimated Li2O resources are: cat. P1 – 269.93 thousand tons and cat. P2 – 140.82 thousand tons with an average Li2O grade of 1.3548%,” the announcement reads.
The winner of the tender must ensure geological exploration of the subsoil and international audit of reserves at the site within two and a half years and submit materials on the assessment of lithium and other metal minerals reserves to the State Committee for the approval of such reserves.
After the conclusion of the PSA, the investor is obliged, among other things, to prospect, extract and enrich (primary processing) lithium and possibly other metal minerals, and to ensure the comprehensive development and mining of the metal mineral deposit.
In addition, the PSA tender documentation for the first time includes obligations for the investor related to the agreement signed at the end of April this year to establish the US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, which has the priority right to invest in new projects for the extraction of rare earth materials and purchase their products.
In mid-June, the head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak, said that the development of the Dobra lithium deposit could become the first pilot project in cooperation with the United States.
In early July, the mining investment company TechMet (Dublin), one of the largest investors of which is the US government through DFC, announced its interest in participating in the first PSA tender for lithium mining in Ukraine and, if it wins, building processing facilities with investments of more than $0.5 billion. Recently, a delegation of DFC accompanied by the heads of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine visited Kirovohrad region.
At the same time, the US-based Critical Metals Corp also claims its rights to the Dobra site, linking them to the transfer of assets from Australia’s European Lithium, which, in turn, received these rights from Ukraine’s Petro-Consulting LLC.
