The Gomel Region is known for its oil and gas reserves, as well as excellent processing facilities. “But that’s not all,” geologists claim. They are certain that Belarus has extensive gold, cupronickel, amber reserves, titanium-magnesium ores and even diamonds in the southeast of the country. The general director of the state geological company “Belgeologia” Alexander Shuravin told reporters that Belarus had redoubled efforts to explore the depths for new minerals. Belarusian geologists have resumed their search for diamonds, or kimberlite pipes, in the south of the country. “We have found accompanying minerals and dissemination of industrial diamonds,” Alexander Shuravin said. “There are diamonds in Belarus for sure, and I’m sure we will find them.”
Diamond pipes are certainly there, somewhere in the southeast of Belarus, near Zhlobin and Dobrush (both in the Gomel Region), where geologists have discovered the right combination of bitumen, iron ore and coal, just enough to prompt our experts that one more step is needed to uncover the most precious mineral. “There is so much to explore, and we have launched an unprecedented prospecting campaign, but if we finally find diamonds, our work will break even in no time at all,” Alexander Shuravin said.
There are amber deposits in the Brest Region, recent studies showed.
Amber may also be found in the Gomel, Grodno and Vitebsk Regions. “Belarus does not possess a high density deposit area that would be very profitable to develop, but the government has instructed “Belgeologia” to prepare several large fields for commercial operation,” the chief geologist of the country said.
“Belgeologia” has discovered noncommercial gold reserves in the south and southeast of the country, and the recent supplementary exploration of the Okolovskoe iron ore deposit, also in the southeast, revealed what seems to be a workable deposit of gold among iron fields, Alexander Shuravin told reporters. The Novosyolkovo iron ore deposit may boast a deposit of titanium-magnesium ore. This ore may also be found in the Brest and
Gomel Regions.
“Belarus has explored about 42% of its reserves so far, but only 52% of depths are worth exploring,” says the director of the geology department with the Ministry of Natural Resources of Belarus, Vladimir Karpuk. The low percentage means there is still a good chance to find not only fuels, metals and chemicals, but also precious metals, precious and semi-precious stones. Geologists plan to continue exploring large deposits of oil, bitumen and natural gas originally discovered in the south and east of the country back in the 1970s. However, the information about the explored reserves was made confidential.
Meanwhile, Belarus’ only diamond-processing plant, based in the city of Gomel, keeps increasing output of industrial diamonds made from raw materials delivered from Russia and other foreign countries. The main buyers of industrial diamonds are defense and high-technology industries of the former Soviet Union and some East European countries. Diamond-bearing materials are delivered from the Balkan States, Western Africa and the Middle East.
Specialists have good reasons to believe that mineral deposits found in the Gomel Region may also be discovered in the adjacent Bryansk, Kiev and Chernigov Regions of Russia and Ukraine due to the geological commonness of the Dnepr area. Belarus finds it crucial to carry out joint prospecting works financed by Belarus, Russia and Ukraine in the scope of the Euroregion-Dnepr program.
