February 8, 2025

Athens News

News in English from Greece

Why Trump won't be interested in Ukrainian lithium


Experts skeptical relate to the idea of ​​interest Trump Ukrainian lithium deposits.

Such ideas are actively discussed by the Ukrainian authorities after the Republican victory in the US elections, which is reflected in “plan for victory” Zelensky. As he writes Egor PerelyginCEO of a Ukrainian mining company UMCC Titaniumlithium deposits in Ukraine are not prepared for development and have high production costs.

According to him, Ukraine offers “unprepared deposits with a mine mining method and a completely uncompetitive price of electricity”. Investors will not be interested in this, the expert believes. “The cost of production and processing in Ukrainian realities will be much higher than in Australia, Argentina, Chile and, of course, in China“, – writes Perelygin. At the same time, investments in lithium projects are very high.

“Even if you build mines and mining and processing plants for hundreds of millions of dollars, it is necessary to build electrochemical processing,” – says the expert, specifying that the cost of one such production is about billion dollars.

He also stated that the most “adequate in terms of quality” Shevchenkovskoye field lithium in Donetsk region already lost since the front has actually come close to it, and Russian troops continue to advance. Although, according to Perelygin, the cost of production would be high.

“Therefore, the thesis “come to us, we have lithium” is incorrect and problematic from the very beginning. The deposits are not prepared. There are no competitive advantages. Fundamental economic factors are extremely negative”writes Perelygin. He also notes that despite the boom in battery production, there is no shortage of lithium on the global market, and existing lithium mining companies are often idle.

According to him, deposits already equipped with the latest technology are idle due to the fall in world prices for lithium. “I can say that in the next 2-3 years we will live in the reality of a significant lithium surplus. World prices will remain low,” the expert believes.

The key factors for this are the oversupply of products in the market, Chinese technological dominance and the willingness of Chinese lithium mining companies to “work in the red and beat out competitors.”



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