[Goose]

I was under the impression that these deposits are not well developed and it will cost a fair amount of money to develop them along with a fair amount of time.  I thought I also read somewhere that some of these deposits are in the Donbass region which is controlled by Russia.  I find it hard to believe we would pay to develop resources controlled by Russia.  I can certainly understand the desire or maybe even mandatory necessity for a security guarantee.  What would prevent the other side from simply lauching another attack once the hard work is done developing the resources?  Common sense would seem to dictate that this is very much a buyer's beware environment.

The ones not in the Russian area of control are not developed. The cost of development is very high. When evaluating the worth of these deposits one might ask "Why are Rio Tinto, BHP etc. aren't already there?". The answer is they did the math and decided it wasn't worth the investment. Mineral commodity prices are very key to whether or not investing in the exploitation of any given site makes sense. Many very costly major developments have been started when prices were high only to be abandoned when prices fell such that the cost of production would be greater than the current price.

As an example, BHP owns the mineral rights to many ore bodies they have discovered and mapped (at least partially) in Elko county, Nevada. They spent a LOT of money prospecting and drilling core samples. As the newspapers stated, the ore is worth many billions. Some of it is actually gold (https://www.mindat.org/locentry-1536910.html).  However, lots of it is deep underground. Given the large up-front investment required and the ongoing costs of mining it, it just isn't worth doing. There are other lower cost sources of the material. BHP believes that won't be true forever, but it has been for the last 25 years at least. They are not developing anything AFAIK. They have sold off many of the leases. This link https://www.juniorminingnetwork.com/juni...evada.html is an interesting example.

That is the kind of thing we are "getting" from Ukraine in the area they do control, although not nearly as well prospected. OTOH almost all the sites present in the Donbas that Russia already controls are "mined out". They are money losing propositions that operate only because they are government controlled and necessary to the economy of the area. Their commercial value is very questionable at best. There are a few that are profitable but very obsolete in their production and refining methods. They also violate just about every pollution regulation known to man. They aren't profitable enough to justify major investments to reduce pollution or increase yield. We in the western US are unfortunately very familiar with that scenario.

[Goose]

I was under the impression that these deposits are not well developed and it will cost a fair amount of money to develop them along with a fair amount of time.  I thought I also read somewhere that some of these deposits are in the Donbass region which is controlled by Russia.  I find it hard to believe we would pay to develop resources controlled by Russia.  I can certainly understand the desire or maybe even mandatory necessity for a security guarantee.  What would prevent the other side from simply lauching another attack once the hard work is done developing the resources?  Common sense would seem to dictate that this is very much a buyer's beware environment.

The ones not in the Russian area of control are not developed. The cost of development is very high. When evaluating the worth of these deposits one might ask "Why are Rio Tinto, BHP etc. aren't already there?". The answer is they did the math and decided it wasn't worth the investment. Mineral commodity prices are very key to whether or not investing in the exploitation of any given site makes sense. Many very costly major developments have been started when prices were high only to be abandoned when prices fell such that the cost of production would be greater than the current price.

As an example, BHP owns the mineral rights to many ore bodies they have discovered and mapped (at least partially) in Elko county, Nevada. They spent a LOT of money prospecting and drilling core samples. As the newspapers stated, the ore is worth many billions. Some of it is actually gold (https://www.mindat.org/locentry-1536910.html).  However, lots of it is deep underground. Given the large up-front investment required and the ongoing costs of mining it, it just isn't worth doing. There are other lower cost sources of the material. BHP believes that won't be true forever, but it has been for the last 25 years at least. They are not developing anything AFAIK. They have sold off many of the leases. This link https://www.juniorminingnetwork.com/juni...evada.html is an interesting example.

That is the kind of thing we are "getting" from Ukraine in the area they do control, although not nearly as well prospected. OTOH almost all the sites present in the Donbas that Russia already controls are "mined out". They are money losing propositions that operate only because they are government controlled and necessary to the economy of the area. Their commercial value is very questionable at best. There are a few that are profitable but very obsolete in their production and refining methods. They also violate just about every pollution regulation known to man. They aren't profitable enough to justify major investments to reduce pollution or increase yield. We in the western US are unfortunately very familiar with that scenario.