Czech energy holding Solartec, through its Ukrainian subsidiary Solartec Esco, has won an auction and obtained the right to invest for 20 years in the extraction of graphite ore at the Maidanska site of the Burtin deposit in the Khmelnytskyi region.
Information about the auction results has been published in the Prozorro.Sale system.
Auction Terms
The company offered UAH 31.7 million for the special permit, nearly three times higher than the competing bid.
The license provides for:
- subsoil use rights for a period of 20 years;
- industrial extraction of graphite ore;
- open-pit (quarry) development of the deposit;
- no use of blasting operations.
The Maidanska site is located near the village of Burtin in the Shepetivka district.
Deposit Reserves
According to the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine, the site contains:
- approximately 25.5 million tonnes of ore;
- more than 40 million tonnes of prospective resources;
- an estimated 3 million tonnes of graphite.
This makes the Burtin deposit one of the most promising graphite assets in western Ukraine.
Graphite is a critical raw material for:
- lithium-ion battery production;
- the electric vehicle industry;
- the defense sector;
- metallurgy and the chemical industry.
In the context of European critical raw materials policy and efforts to reduce dependence on imports from China, the development of Ukrainian graphite deposits is gaining strategic importance.
Currently, the only active graphite producer in Ukraine is the Zavallivskyi Graphite group in the Kirovohrad region.
In previous years, the market also saw entries by:
- BGV Group Management — which acquired two special permits in 2018–2019;
- Spys Ukraine LLC, part of the Onur Group — which obtained a special permit in 2021 in the Khmelnytskyi region.
Against the backdrop of a global graphite supply deficit for the battery industry, Solartec’s investment may represent an important step toward establishing a полноцен mining and processing segment for strategic minerals in Ukraine.
