Turkish company withdraws from developing a precious metals deposit in Ukraine

The grounds for terminating the special permit are cited as Paragraph 1, Part 2, Article 26 of Ukraine’s Subsoil Code — a request from the subsoil user to terminate the special permit for subsoil use, including in cases where the need to use the subsoil has ceased.

Earlier, it became known that a company from the Onur Group, as the holder of the permit for the Zhovtovodska area, was included in the list of users of strategic subsoil resources and controllers of so-called “dormant” licenses. According to Nadra.info, these licenses are subject to audit and extraordinary inspections following orders and repeated statements by Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

Spys Ukraine purchased the special permit for the Zhovtovodska area at auction in December 2020 for more than 5.7 million hryvnias.

Later, Emre Karaahmetoglu, CEO of Onur Group in Ukraine, said the gold content in ore at the Zhovtovodska area turned out to be three times lower than the investor had expected.

According to project documents, Onur Group had expected about 4.5 grams of gold per ton of ore, but geological exploration results showed around 1.4 grams per ton.

“This is significantly lower and does not make mining economically viable. Therefore, we see no prospects for this site and do not plan to invest further,” Karaahmetoglu said.

He also noted that Onur Group had considered seeking compensation through the courts “due to discrepancies in the State Service of Geology and Subsoil’s data on reserves,” but ultimately deemed the legal route unpromising, “withdrew the claim and continued working in constructive dialogue with the State Service of Geology and Subsoil.”

Niobium ores in Ukraine are included in the lists of minerals and components of strategic and critical importance.

Niobium and gold are also listed among the mineral components whose new extraction projects are expected to fund the Ukrainian-American Reconstruction Investment Fund.

After relinquishing the permit for the Zhovtovodska area with gold and niobium ores, Onur Group still controls eight subsoil plots in Ukraine containing deposits of limestone, sand, migmatite, granite, kaolin and graphite, Nadra.info reported.

As previously reported, the Turkish company Onur Group plans to begin mining graphite ore at the Burtinske deposit in Ukraine’s Khmelnytskyi Oblast in 2026.