MODERN SALT CRISIS IN UKRAINE AND PROSPECTS AND PROBLEMS OF RESTORING THE MINING AND PRODUCTION OF ROCK, INDUSTRIAL, FOOD SALT

Abstract

After the cessation of salt production in the Donetsk region as a result of hostilities and the Russian occupation of Bakhmut and Soledar towns, the problem of developing new deposits of cooking and technical salt, as well as speleotherapy, became acute in Ukraine. The pre-Carpathian depression in the northeastern part has a historical name: “Halychyna” – the Land of Salt and the salt dome structures of the Transcarpathian depression: “salty place” – Solotvyno, according to archaeological data, they were places of extraction of rock salt and oil, as well as cooking salt from it since the Bronze Age. From the Middle Ages to the middle of the 20th century, there were dozens of salt factories. In this regard, potential investors paid attention to the deposits of the Carpathian region. It has been established that the ways of solving the problem of resuming the extraction and production of rock, technical and food salt in Ukraine in regions remote from the front of the Russian-Ukrainian war are: 1. Resumption of the operation of small salt production plants (salt works, “saltworks”, “zhup”), which were functioning in the Carpathian region for centuries and millennia; 2. Development of deposits of the Tereblyan deposit by the mine method and the method of underground leaching in the central part of the Solotvy basin on the border of the Khust and Tyachiv districts of the Transcarpathian region, in the vicinity of the villages of Tereblya, Oleksandrivka, Danilovo, and Boronyava, where outcrops under the Quaternary are observed deposits in the form of rock salt dome structures; 3. Development of the Solotvy deposit by underground leaching method in the northern section and recovery of mining by the mine method within the limits of mine № 9 with processing of accumulated brines and the prospect of quarrying of salts in the area between the mining diversions of mines № № 7–9; 4. The use of accumulated substandard sodium chloride with impurities of potassium salts, magnesium and sulfates, formed in the process of beneficiation of potassium ores that meet the requirements for salt-mineral mixtures as a technical salt for the preparation of anti-icing agents. 5. The conducted studies give reasons to claim that the Carpathian region has a significant potential for solving the problem of resuming the mining and production of rock, technical and food salt in Ukraine in areas remote from the fro nt of the Russian-Ukrainian war.