Mineral Resources of Belarus

Transcription

1 IN THE SPOTLIGHT Mineral Resources of Belarus Mineral resources that Belarus possesses serve as the material basis for the advancement of this nation s economy Vladimir TSALKO, Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of the Republic of Belarus Mineral resources, their extraction, processing and marketing remain a hot issue these days. To address it, you need an integrated approach that requires close international collaboration in a variety of fields such as commerce, politics, science and technology. Whether you can satisfy a demand for raw materials depends not only on your having enough resources, but also on how you use them, on your sci-tech sector, whether it is advanced enough, and on the overall nature of your public relations. Technological progress contributes greatly to the efficient use of mineral resources including deep-lying resources and resources that used to be considered economically unrecoverable. Rational Use A fine way to attract investments in the Belarusian economy in the next 10 years may be rational use of mineral resources, efficient production of goods using these resources and wise marketing of these goods around the world. It is really important for the state to ensure that local resources are increasingly used as fuels and raw materials in production and for export; that they are gradually squeezing out imported fuels and resources. Belarus has a strong potential in terms of mineral resources, which might help this country reduce its dependence on imported fuels. Considering that mineral resources are the material basis of the Belarusian economy and the bulwark of its national security, the main objectives in the development of mineral resources are as follows: to set up efficient production facilities in the locations where the minerals are extracted; to continue to improve the geological prospecting work; to set up a modern efficient system of state accounting and forecasting of the development of In the quarry of Krasnoselskstroimaterialy chalk is extracted by powerful walking excavators 70

2 IN THE SPOTLIGHT the mineral resources base of the country; to develop a state strategy on natural resources. More than 30 types of minerals have been discovered in Belarus. They can be classified into the following types: technically and economically recoverable resources (oil, peat, potash and rock salt, dolomites, sapropels, moulding sands and other construction materials); contingent resources (brown coal, oil shale, iron ore, zeolite-containing silicites, porcelain clays, gypsum, rare minerals and highly mineralized brines); and prospective resources (phosphorites, glauconite, pyrophyllite, amber, diamonds, materials for producing mineral fiber, rare ferrous and precious metals). Energy and Fuel The consumption of oil by the economy depends on how much oil is processed at Mozyr Oil Refinery and Novopolotsk Oil Refinery, and how much oil is used to make fuel. Oil deposits lie in the south of Belarus in the Pripyat downwarp. Since 1964 when Belgeologiya (the state-run company responsible for geological prospecting for oil and minerals) discovered the first oil deposit in Belarus, a total of 75 oil deposits have been discovered, the largest of them lying in the northern part of the Pripyat downwarp. Seventy-two deposits are in Gomel Oblast and the three remaining in Mogilev Oblast. Today we are developing 61 deposits. In terms of the 2010 level of oil production, there will be enough oil for the next 33 years. There are considerable peat deposits in Belarus. The peak in peat production was in 1975, around 46 million tonnes. About 30 million tonnes were used for agricultural purposes (in every district we had several peat production facilities operated by the state company, Selkhozkhimia). Target volumes of peat production were sent down to the fuel industry operators as well. Around six million tonnes were used for energy production every year. Mineral deposits in the Republic of Belarus In recent years, peat production has ranged between two to three million tonnes per year. The main purpose is production of energy by the companies of Beltopgaz. Among the minerals that Belarus imports is coal. It comes from Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Kazakhstan in the amount between 250,000 to 300,000 tonnes per year. Belarus possesses low-quality brown coal deposits lying at a depth of 20 to 80 meters. The best studied are the deposits in Zhitkovichi and Petrikov Districts, with their aggregate known reserves of 99.1 million tonnes. Two coal beds have been prepared for development at the Zhitkovichi deposit, with a total of 69.1 million tonnes, which we could use to build an open-pit coal mine with a capacity of two million tonnes per year, and the Brinev deposit (30 million tonnes) where we could build production facilities with a capacity of one million tonnes per year to extract and process brown coal that utilities operators could use as fuel. Belarusian geologists are prospecting the Lelchitsy brown coal deposit in the south of the country. From what we already know about it, we could build a facility there capable of processing 1.8 million tonnes of coal per year, which we could later use as fuel. Another source of fuel could be oil shale. We now have two deposits: one near Lyuban and the other near Turov, where, according to preliminary estimates, we have about million tonnes of oil shale. One of the most efficient and economically safe sources of energy is geothermal energy, but you will not find it in our fuel consumption mix. Metal Deposits Considering the increase in the manufacturing of rolled metal products and metal cord in Belarus, this country imports scrap metal. By 2008, the home demand for it exceeded two million tonnes, or around $400 million. Therefore it seems like a good idea to set up our own metallurgical production using Okolovskoye (Minsk Oblast) and Novosyolkovskoye (Grodno Oblast) deposits. The Okolovskoye deposit of ferruginous quartzite, with a capacity of around million tonnes, 71

3 IN THE SPOTLIGHT 72 Mineral Number of Deposits Reserves Unit of Measurement Potash salt, raw salt/к 2 О 3 and 2 millions Amount / Table salt 3 millions Oil 74 millions 55.4 Coal 2 millions 99.1 Oil shale 2 millions Peat 71 millions Iron ore 2 millions Chalk for cement 7 millions Chalk for lime and crushed chalk 34 millions Marl for cement 1 millions Dolomite 1 millions Tripoli 1 millions 30.0 Cladding stone 1 Building stone 3 Sand and gravel mix 195 millions of cubic meters millions of cubic meters millions of cubic meters Glass sand 2 millions 17.1 Moulding sand 2 millions 35.2 Building sand 161 millions of cubic meters Soils used for road coating Minerals and Raw Materials in the Republic of Belarus as of 1 January millions of cubic meters 78.1 Clays for cement 13 millions Mounding clays 1 millions 12.3 Brick clays 218 millions of cubic meters Agloporite clay 6 millions of cubic meters 25.4 Expanded clay 8 millions of cubic meters 53.9 Refractory clay 6 millions 51.8 Sapropel 85 millions 74.1 Ground fresh water 278 Ground mineral water 227 millions of cubic meters per day millions of cubic meters per day Industrial waters 1 cubic meters per day 96 has been prospected 700 meters deep. At this deposit we could set up facilities to extract and enrich ore (4 million tonnes per year), produce magnetite concentrate (888,900 tonnes per year), iron-rich pellets (625,000 tonnes per year) which meet the requirements of the technology applied at Belarusian Steel Works. The investment needed is $1.6 billion. The capacity of the Novosyolkovskoye deposit is around 130 million tonnes of titan and magnetite ores. It is possible to build a mining factory there. In the west of Gomel Oblast, we have a deposit of rare earth elements, called Diabazovoye. Our preliminary study has encouraged us to move ahead with a detailed prospecting of this deposit in order to prepare it for development and production of rare metals and mineral fiber to be used as heating and sound insulation material, and crushed stone. The issue now is to find a customer for this project. Abundance of Salt In terms of the size of potassium deposits, Belarus comes third in the world after Canada and Russia, and potash fertilizers are a major export of Belarus. The deposits that have been studied in detail are Starobinskoye (Minsk Oblast) and Petrikovskoye (Gomel Oblast), with their aggregate reserves in excess of 6.8 billion tonnes. We have discovered and carried out a preliminary study of the Oktyabrskoye (Gomel Oblast) deposit (636 million tonnes) and discovered some promising saltbearing areas. The discovered deposits of rock salt at the three fields (Starobinskoye, Davydovskoye and Mozyrskoye) are in excess of 21 billion tonnes. The extraction of rock salt to produce dietary salt Extra is done at the Mozyrskoye field, 380,000 tonnes per year. We have started the extraction of rock salt (dietary, fodder and technical) at the Starobinskoye deposit using the mining method. The annual production of rock salt in Belarus is more than one million tonnes. The known deposits of the salt make it possible for us to satisfy the nation s demand for dietary and technical salt by using Belarusian raw materials and arranging the export of this type of products in large quantities. In addition to the deposits already discovered, we have identified some locations in Gomel Oblast (Shestovichsky, Skrygalovsky, Yuzhno-Kopatkevichsky, Komarovsky, Oktyabrsky and Omelkovschinsky) with a better mode of occurrence and the aggregate reserves of rock salt in excess of 28 billion tonnes. In other words, Belarus possesses nearly unlimited deposits of rock salt.

4 IN THE SPOTLIGHT Raw Materials for Agriculture and Construction Belarus has been importing over 200,000 tonnes of gypsum a year. Recently a new gypsum deposit Brinevskoye has been discovered in Gomel Oblast. The deposit is estimated at million tonnes of gypsum and its geological setting allows for mining. The necessary capital investments for the deposit development are estimated at $69.09 million. A large dolomite deposit Ruba with over 900 million tonnes of currently explored reserves was discovered in Vitebsk Oblast. This raw material is used to produce dolomite powder, crushed dolomite, mineral powders for roofing felt, asphalt, concrete, and other materials. The country s demand for carbonate fertilizers (dolomite powder) has been reduced to two or three million tonnes a year. The plant s capacities allow increasing production of dolomite powder up to million tonnes, therefore it is necessary to find new markets. It is believed that these deposits will last for about one hundred years. If necessary, the dolomite reserves may be increased without significant additional costs to the geological exploration. Besides the Ruba deposit, Vitebsk Oblast has a number of smaller dolomite deposits with the projected reserves exceeding 200 million tonnes. Belarusian lakes and peat beds are also rich in sapropel deposits. According to the estimates, the sapropel reserves total 2.6 billion cubic meters. Belarus also has a lot of developed deposits of construction materials which are used either directly or after technical processing. These are deposits of carbonate rock, such as chalk and marlstone; clay and loam with different melting temperatures and other properties; various sands and gravel-sands; building stone, etc. They all are used in the production of concrete, lime, ceramic and silicate articles, glass, facing and roofing materials, light porous fillers, road metal, and gravel-sands used in concrete production and road construction. A vast majority of the explored deposits of construction materials are being developed while the rest are used as reserve base for mining companies. Although there is a great number of construction materials deposits, Belarus still lacks silica sands for glass production and clay for concrete production. There is not enough sand and gravel-sand deposits in the south. The cement industry has enough resources for a long run. The total commercial reserves of cement raw materials exceed 1 billion tonnes. There are three cement plants. There are three explored deposits of construction stones totaling million cubic meters. These are Mikashevichskoye and Sitnitskoye in Brest Oblast and Glushkovichskoye in Gomel Oblast. The reserves of facing materials are represented by the migmatite deposit Karier Nadezhdy located in Gomel Oblast. The migmatite reserves total 3.3 cubic meters. Three deposits of glass and moulding sands are ready for commercial development. They are the Lenino deposit (glass and moulding sands), Chetvernya (moulding sands) and Gorodnoye (glass sands) in Gomel and Brest Oblasts respectively. Their total reserves approximate 50 million tonnes. Over 190 deposits of sand and gravel materials have been discovered so far in Belarus. Their total reserves exceed 690 million cubic meters. More than 100 deposits of over 12 million cubic meters of raw materials are being developed. Although Belarus produces quite a lot of construction sand, gravel-sand and road metal, the demand for these materials is not fully met. There are regions where the gap between the demand and supply is especially big. Therefore it is advisable to renew development of some deposits which was suspended for some reasons. There are more than 200 deposits of slow-melting clays (250 million cubic meters) which are used in production of rough ceramics; eight clay deposits (over 70 million cubic meters) for agloporite and keramzit production; six deposits of hard-melting clays (51.8 million tonnes) and one deposit of hardmelting bentonite clay (12.3 mil- Tatarka, a stateowned peat producer based in Osipovichi District, is one of the biggest in Belarus 73

5 IN THE SPOTLIGHT lion tonnes) for facing tiles, wall ceramic stones, plumbing ceramic pipes. Twenty deposits of lowmelting and two deposits of hardmelting clays are being developed. About 1 million cubic meters of low-melting and 110,000 cubic meters of hard-melting clays are being extracted every year. The reserves of clay can fully satisfy the demand of the construction industry. But the number of deposits of construction raw materials varies greatly from one oblast to another. If the northern and central parts of the country have enough raw materials, many brick-making plants in the rest of the country suffer from the shortage of raw materials and either make lowquality products or had to close down. Therefore it is paramount to boost search for new deposits of raw materials in order to meet the long-term demand of brickmaking plants. It is also advisable to renew development of earlier explored deposits of brick raw materials. The country s demand for construction materials, including cement, can be fully satisfied by the development of old deposits as well as preparation of industrial development of new mineral deposits. Water Resources Belarus boasts rich fresh underground water resources with the known daily reserves totaling 6.4 million cubic meters. Consumption of the fresh underground waters has been constantly growing. Minsk, oblast centers and industrial hubs, cities and townships have enough water to satisfy their needs for a long time. One of the priorities of the geologic services of Belarus is to launch commercial exploitation of fresh underground waters in order to stop using surface waters for the water supply. Belarus is rich in mineral waters which quality and therapeutic properties are similar to those of Western Europe and the Caucasus. The most popular of them are chloride, sulfate, sulfate-chloride, chloride-sulfate, sulphurous, chalybeate and radon mineral waters. The waters with medicinal properties are used by numerous spas and health resorts and are bottled for sale. Unfortunately this type of mineral resources is not exported to generate additional foreign currency revenues to the budget. Highly mineralized chloride brines found within the Pripyat arch can be used as raw materials for production of iodine, bromine and other valuable elements. Assessing Prospects Owing to continuous efforts of researchers and scientists the prospects of finding new mineral deposits in Belarus have been increased in the last few years. Nonetheless, due to the geological peculiarities of Belarus and the fact that mineral resources are vastly understudied, most of the relevant research projects are on different stages of development. A lot of time and financial investments is needed to complete the One of Gomelstroimaterialy dredge machines has already cleared the first thousand tonnes of sand in the new quarry, Sozhsky. Gomelstroimaterialy is one of the leaders of the Belarusian construction industry 74

6 IN THE SPOTLIGHT studies and start the commercial production. With a view to assessing the further development of the Belarusian mineral deposits to satisfy the country s demand for mineral resources, the latter are divided into three main categories according to the level of their commercial exploitation and economic potential. The first group includes the raw materials that are present in adequate quantities, i. e. mineral resources which exploitation meets and will continue meeting the country s demand in full, as well as those that can be exported. They are potassium and mineral salts, dolomites, natural construction materials (construction stone, cement raw materials, ceramic clays, building sands and gravel-sands). The second group includes scarce mineral resources, i. e. minerals that are not produced in adequate quantities. They are, first of all, oil, natural gas, highquality facing stone and silica sands for the glass-making industry and foundry production. The third group includes promising raw materials, i. e. mineral deposits which are under development and are being prepared for commercial use. These are iron ore, brown coal and oil shale, gypsum, phosphorites, brines, carbonate tripoli, kaolins, bauxites and bentonitic clays. This classification allows identifying the major development trends of Belarus mining industry in the short-term perspective, planning the commercial development of new deposits and finding the optimal solutions to the challenges facing the domestic mining industry today. It would make economic sense to increase the production of the minerals Belarus abounds in. The demand for these minerals is growing both on the domestic and foreign markets. The production of potassium salt has increased following the commissioning of new mining facilities at the Starobinskoye Mineral Extraction of Minerals in Unit of measurement Oil Potash salt (raw) Table salt Dolomite Chalk for cement Chalk for lime and crushed chalk Marl for cement Clays for cement Clays for brick, claydite and agloporite Refractory clays Quartz sand Quartz sand for glass production Building sand Sand and gravel mix Building stone thousand cubic meters thousand cubic meters thousand cubic meters thousand cubic meters * used in lime production ** used in brick and claydite production deposit and the launching of the Oktyabrskoye and Petrikovskoye deposits with the help of foreign investors. The available reserves of potassium salt allow satisfying the long-term domestic demand for edible and technical salt and selling large amounts of this product abroad. The ongoing exploration and prospecting works at potassium salt deposits are aimed to increase the production of sodium carbonate. With a view to meeting the domestic demand for granite macadam and ornamental stone, reducing the import and increasing the export of these products, the following projects are to be implemented with the help of foreign investments: - construction of a quarry to produce building stones and a 4611/ 916* 4922/ 1019* 5470/ 893* / 199* 1410/ 652** 1672/ 238* 1591/ 660** 1900/ 252* 1606/ 642** mining and processing company with the capacity of 6.8 million cubic meters of crushed stone and 2 million cubic meters of sand per year at the Sitnitskoye deposit; - upgrade of the crushed stone plant Glushkovichi to produce 1 million tonnes of crushed stone per year. The expansion of the mineral resources base of the cement industry is attributed to the construction of new cement plants in Gomel Oblast. The Podkamenye and Shirokoye chalk deposits, Vetka District, have been chosen as the venue for the construction of a new cement plant by the AZAR- AB company, Iran. A similar competition is to be held to select a contractor to build a cement plant at the Dobrushskoye deposit, Dobrush District. 75

7 IN THE SPOTLIGHT Belorusneft geologists have discovered a new oil deposit in the south of the country, in Khoiniki District Construction sand and sandand-gravel deposits have been prepared for commercial exploration. They will help satisfy the growing demand of the domestic construction industry. As for mineral resources that are in short supply in Belarus, we need to start exploring deposits of the mineral resources that are not produced in Belarus or produced in inadequate quantities. To speed up the commercial production of these mineral resources, we need: - to carry out prospecting to prepare the deposits for industrial exploration; - to develop and introduce new advanced technologies to extract and process mineral resources; - to hold technical and economic assessment of deposits to make sure their development makes economic sense; - to raise private investments, including foreign capital, to carry out field development and exploration. Belarus has mostly small oil fields with residue oil reserves under 1 million tonnes each. Belarusian oil is hard to produce and needs additional oil stimulation works. As active oil fields are depleting and new ones are hard to develop, we need to slow down the natural reduction in oil production. We will step up our efforts to complete exploration works to discover new oil fields, expand survey geography and continue the exploration of under-studied areas. We have plans to commission abandoned wells and fields using the latest well stimulation technologies (horizontal wells, second well bores, deep hydraulic fracturing, and reservoir pressure maintenance). Besides the Pripyat oil and gasbearing region, we will focus on another two oil-bearing areas in the Orsha and Podlaska-Brest basins. They are understudied and have a small sedimentary cover (under 2,000 meters). We have started the regional exploration of the area in order to find more oil fields. The major supplier of raw materials for the domestic glass industry is the Lenino quartz sand deposit operated by Gomel Mining and Processing Plant. The remaining in-place reserves of the deposit are estimated at about 3 million tonnes. The reserves will be depleted within two to three years, provided the production volume remains the same. To keep the glass industry up and going we need to explore new deposits, first of all, the ones located in Stolin District, Brest Oblast. The commercial production of ornamental stone at the Karier Nadezhdy deposit has been frozen since However, the domestic demand for ornamental stone remains the same (about 600,000 cubic meters per year). Therefore, we have plans to resume ornamental stone production at this deposit. From Exploration to Utilization One of the priority tasks we are facing is to optimize the exploration and consumption of mineral resources. The analysis reveals that the exploration and evaluation works are performed in an orderly manner in Belarus, but their results are sometimes disregarded by domestic industries. Financial resources allocated to geological survey should be channeled into priority projects; a detailed description of the deposits should be made, and the proven deposits should be transferred to the customer for commercial use. We need to optimize the work of the government bodies responsible for subsurface management, record maintenance and control. This fully pertains to the oblast executive committees which are in charge of (just like all the local executive and regulatory bodies) the rational use of the existing mineral resources. Efficient planning is essential for expanding the mineral resources base of the country. Deposits should be commissioned taking into consideration the 76

8 IN THE SPOTLIGHT current and potential demand for mineral resources and a possibility to increase their production for export and domestic consumption. The planning should be made on all the levels: from the Economy Ministry and other ministries and government bodies to the local executive and regulatory bodies. The efforts should be led by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. They will decide whether the domestic demand for mineral resources can be satisfied by Belarus own resources and whether the development of a specific deposit makes economic sense. With a view to expanding the mineral resources base, we need to carry out early prospecting and preparation for the commercial production of new deposits and provide the adequate financing for geological exploration. The share of extra-budgetary funds should be increased. Our efforts to encourage ministries to finance geological exploration out of their investment funds have made little headway. The ministries are discouraged by long payback periods and the absence of 100% guarantees of getting back their investments if recoverable deposits are not found. To challenge the status quo, we need to provide mining companies with more incentives to invest in geological exploration. We should also offer legal safeguards to companies financing geological surveys to guarantee the reimbursement of their credit resources. One of the ways to boost investments into geological exploration is to exempt mining companies from taxes on the profits obtained from geological exploration and to transfer these profits to investment funds. Economic Mechanism of Resource Management Today, the economic efficiency is becoming increasingly important for nature management. Resource management is based on economic evaluation of resources. Its purpose is to determine commercial value and employ such parameters which will make commercial production of mineral resources most efficient in the long-term perspective. Defining the value of mineral deposits is crucial for making various kinds of transactions, attracting investments and loans, setting taxes and tariffs, etc., and also for the growth of resource companies. The evaluation is focused on an array of natural resources, for which use we have economically reproducible technology, which eliminates the possibility of bringing irreparable losses and irreversible adverse environmental impacts. The evaluation also takes account of the natural resources that are involved in the commercial production and are items of state and private property. Without economic evaluation we will not be able to implement the most important bills on the transition to market economy, create equal conditions for enterprises irrespective of the form of ownership, take stock of the environmental damage, to substantiate regulations governing extraction of resources, develop incentive measures for their protection. Another purpose of evaluation is to determine the economic value of mineral reserves so that the state could regulate relations in the subsoil management and ensure the rational use of the country s raw materials for the benefit of present and future generations. Evaluation of fields is focused on the following goals: - carrying out a comparative cost analysis of mineral resources and the economic efficiency of their use; - improving the system of charging for mineral extraction taking into account factors that generate rental income; - calculating commodity price of prospective mineral resources and operational stocks of mineral resources; - assessing the economic efficiency of development of mineral deposits; Prime Minister of Belarus Mikhail Myasnikovich laid a capsule in the foundation of a complex NPKfertilizer plant in Soligorsk (29 April 2011) 77

9 IN THE SPOTLIGHT - improving the economic and legal mechanism for regulating profits obtained from the use of mineral resources; - generating budget revenues from the use of mineral resources, which can be invested into exploration, cost-effective development and conduct of environmental activities; - optimizing exploration works, determining their economic efficiency and generating profits for the geology industry; - making feasibility studies of the mineral resources reserves as an element of national wealth, identifying the main areas of their rational use in the national economy based on high technology in order to maximize revenues; - developing institutional measures and creating economic conditions enabling the users of mineral resources to apply new technological solutions in survey, exploration and development of mineral deposits; - cultivating the management system of mineral resources, creating the information database of the possibilities of their use. Science-based solutions to these problems will create preconditions for the development of a long-term strategy for the use of mineral resources and for concentration of financial resources on the mineral deposits which are the most promising and economically attractive for commercial development. Evaluation seeks to determine key indicators, including: - geological and recoverable reserves of mineral reserves; - timeframe and costs of construction of a mining (and processing) organization; - profitability of a field development. Evaluation of fields may be held: at the state level to regulate relations in the area of mineral resources management on the basis of the potential economic value of mineral reserves; at the commercial level to determine the investment attractiveness of the sites prepared for surveying, exploration and development. Evaluation of deposits should make part of the state registry of mineral resources and should spell out the economic value of mineral reserves. From the foregoing it becomes apparent that evaluation of mineral resources is one of the most pressing problems today. Its solution will help ensure rational, economically sound development of the existing mineral fields and significantly improve the mineral taxation system. The Republic of Belarus may consider abolishing the fixed tax rate for mineral ex- Extraction of raw materials in a quarry of Belarusian Cement Factory 78

10 IN THE SPOTLIGHT traction and introducing differentiated royalty rates depending on the type of a mineral, volume and value of its output, and profitability of mining companies. The system of payments in the form of royalty should apply to all mining enterprises of the country, regardless of the form of ownership. At the same time introducing decreasing coefficients for the fields located far from industrial centers or in underserved areas will stimulate their development. By having the information about the real value of deposits at our disposal we can implement a system of lump sum payments (bonuses) to attract private investment to the surveying and development of deposits on a competitive basis. Proper evaluation of deposits will also allow increasing the use of non-tax methods of withdrawal of some part of profits from the subsoil users who operate deposits on the terms of concessions or on the terms of a production-sharing agreement between the company and the state. The state as owner of the subsoil can derive even greater economic benefits by introducing a system of rent payments, the size of which would depend on the value of a deposit. In this case, not only subsoil resources but also the cost of minerals can be assigned to the balance sheet of a subsoil user. Thus, the user would be economically motivated to maximize the extraction of useful components at all stages of industrial development of a field - from production to refining. This will also encourage him to finance not only geological surveying and development of a field, but also the use of advanced technologies. Involving technogenic deposits into commercial production can be seen as a promising area of expanding the mineral resources base. For example, Belaruskali and Gomel Chemical Plant alone have accumulated tens of millions of solid mining and chemical production waste containing a number of valuable components (rare and precious metals, phosphogypsum, low-grade potash, rock salt, etc.). For more active use of mining and industrial wastes, we need to take stock of them, to draw up feasibility studies of their use, improve the legal and methodological framework to ensure that they are treated as a source of minerals. One of the major objectives the head of state put forward at the Fourth All-Belarus People s Congress was the implementation of major national projects based on the country s natural and intellectual resources, development of mineral fields. This will help boost gross domestic product due to increased production of minerals, satisfy the needs of enterprises with local mineral resources, ramp up the export potential and reduce the dependence of the Belarusian economy on imports of mineral raw materials. The government approved the mineral deposits development program of the Republic of Belarus for years, and for the period until 2020 taking into account the urgency of the issues of reproduction and development of mineral resources, the need to address long-term tasks in the field of geological surveying of the country and to develop a comprehensive approach to the use of mineral resources. Implementing the program activities will allow stepping up the production of potassium salts by 15% by 2015, salt by 82%, cement raw materials by 32%, dolomite by 11%, building stone for the production of crushed stone by 54%, glass raw materials by 41%, natural building materials by 58% and peat by 115%. We will launch the construction of nine new mines; some of them will be commissioned by According to expert estimates, the investments in the development of the abovementioned fields will pay back in 5 to 8 years. * * * Minerals are one of Belarus main resources. Today our primary task is to ensure rational management of this wealth for the benefit of the Belarusian people. Belarus biggest deposit of sapropel lies in Lake Dikoye, Dyatlovo District 79