Investors who have not started subsoil exploitation may lose their licenses.

Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko has instructed the Ministry of Economy and the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine to review all license holders authorized to develop strategically important deposits.

The goal is to identify those who are actually extracting minerals and those who merely hold licenses without operating. “Dormant” permits will be returned to auction and transferred to “reliable investors.”

The list of strategic minerals, approved by the Cabinet of Ministers in July, includes 11 items (aluminum, beryllium, copper, nickel, niobium, strontium, tantalum, titanium, uranium, and zirconium ores, as well as fluorite). Together with critical materials, the list covers 28 items.

As for deposits, 60 will be made available under auction terms, while 26 will be offered under production sharing agreements (PSA), including one vanadium deposit, one lithium deposit, two potash salt deposits, five titanium ore deposits, and 17 uranium ore deposits.

In February, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine must conduct an audit of its subsoil resources as part of preparing a memorandum with the United States, and emphasized the need to protect businesses that are currently legally engaged in mineral extraction.

Yulia Svyrydenko also stated that the practical work of the Ukrainian-American Reconstruction Investment Fund, established in the spring of this year and focused on critical raw materials, will begin in September.