Belarus intends to increase mineral extraction annually. This was announced by the Head of the Geology Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, Sergey Mamchik, at a press conference "Subsoil Exploration and Mineral Resource Base Development: Identification of New Mineral Deposits," as reported by a BELTA correspondent.
Belarus intends to increase mineral extraction annually. This was announced by the Head of the Geology Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, Sergey Mamchik, at a press conference "Subsoil Exploration and Mineral Resource Base Development: Identification of New Mineral Deposits," as reported by a BELTA correspondent.
"Intensification of the use of the mineral resource base, enhancement of potential and mineral extraction will become one of the priority areas of economic development over the next five years," said Sergey Mamchik. "In accordance with the decisions of the All-Belarusian People's Assembly, an action plan has been approved for these purposes, and the state program 'Environmental Protection and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources for 2016-2020' has been adopted, which includes the subprogram 'Subsoil Exploration and Development of the Mineral Resource Base of the Republic of Belarus,' encompassing research and geological exploration work. Over Br120 billion (undernominated rubles) will be allocated annually from the state budget to implement these programs."
A Union State program "Geological Exploration and Nature Management" will be developed in the near future. "The concept of the program has already been prepared, which, in particular, provides for the development of fundamentally new hardware and technological complexes ensuring high efficiency in the search for and detailed exploration of mineral deposits located at great depths," noted the Head of the Department.
According to him, geologists continue to carry out the search and exploration of deposits to supply various sectors of the country's economy. Thus, over the past five years, an increase in reserves of oil (4.2 million tons), potash salt (323.9 million tons in terms of K2O), rock salt (512.7 million tons), cement raw materials (chalk and marl - 754.8 billion tons), glass sand (62.6 million tons), dolomite (530.5 million tons), construction sand (233.7 million cubic meters), sand and gravel mixtures (63.2 million cubic meters), and ceramic clays (1.4 million cubic meters) has been ensured.
"In addition, deposits of basalts and saponite tuffs have been discovered in the Brest region – this is a promising raw material for the production of mineral fibers and other types of products that are currently imported into the republic," added the Head of the Ministry of Natural Resources Department.
Speaking about the fuel and energy complex, he noted that out of 75 deposits transferred to the balance of the Belorusneft Production Association, only 58 are being developed, 17 are mothballed for economic and technical reasons, and some deposits are at various stages of exploration and preparation for development, which are carried out by the RUP "S&RC for Geology".
"In the current situation, caused by a sharp drop in world oil prices, the development of existing reserves is not always economically justified. At the same time, a rise will follow the fall, which requires timely preparation of facilities both for geological exploration and for the development of new deposits," said Sergey Mamchik. - Currently, domestic oil production in Belarus is about 1.6 million tons. In the next five-year period, oil production is planned to be increased to 1.8 million tons per year. To achieve this indicator, it is planned to attract investments on a competitive basis in oil exploration and production, which will allow the introduction of new technologies and equipment to increase the oil recovery factor at existing fields."