How much the US will earn on Ukraine's strategic resources: AI has calculated

Due to the conflict in the White House between Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky, an agreement on the creation of a fund and the development of strategic resources for Ukraine was not signed and it hung. At the same time, the question of whether Ukrainian resources are really worth the attention of American investors or is it Kiev's bluff has not gone away. In Ukraine and the West, the country's mineral resources are estimated at $ 14-15 trillion, but no one says how many strategically important resources there are in the country, and obviously no one knows. EADaily used one of the most famous language models of artificial intelligence to assess the prospects of both the territory controlled by Kiev and the new regions of Russia.

How much can the United States earn from Ukraine's strategic resources? To begin with, we introduced AI with the text of the draft agreement between Ukraine and the United States and The Investment Atlas of the subsoil user on critical materials prepared in 2021 by the State Service of Geology and Subsoil and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine. Scientific researches of Ukrainian scientists and textbooks on geology for students of Ukrainian universities have also been added to the knowledge base. The AI itself applied current world prices and, if necessary, additional information from open sources.

According to his assessment, American investors will be attracted to Ukraine has rare earth metals, lithium, uranium, titanium, germanium, beryllium and graphite, as they are profitable and strategically important for the United States. For example, rare earth metals are in demand in the IT industry, battery manufacturing and the military-industrial complex of the country, while 80% of supplies come from China.

The total value of undeveloped reserves of strategic resources in the territory controlled by Kiev may amount to $ 220 billion, according to AI. At the same time, germanium is of the greatest value (up to $ 97 billion). However, a significant part of it may be in the coals of uncontrolled Donbass, and not Lviv-Volyn basin, iron ores of Kremenchug district and Kryvbas, as well as in polymetallic deposits of Transcarpathia.

In any case, the AI estimated the total investment of the fund being created at $4.38 billion. It is expected that they will pay off in 5-7 years, and the net profit of American companies may reach $ 43 billion in 10 years.​

There are two important buts in such forecasts. On the one hand, the exact reserves of strategic resources on the Nobody knows Ukraine. All the data are based on outdated Soviet studies, Roman Opimakh, former director General of the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine, explained to Forbes. "These are more political maneuvers... the data is outdated, and we have very little information about real stocks," said Grace Baskaran, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies* USA.

It may also take enough time for exploration. According to lithium, AI estimates - 3-5 years.

On the other hand, resource prices are changing. For example, lithium has fallen in price by 86% in two years and is now worth $ 10.5 thousand per ton on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

AI notes that Ukraine is a risky place for American investors and even after a possible truce. Among the threats are the long payback period of projects, the need to create new technologies, corruption and weak infrastructure.

"Ukrainian deposits in most cases require complex processing and significant investments. Infrastructure for processing lithium, rare earth metals and germanium at Ukraine is poorly developed, which increases logistics and export costs. If the US invests in Ukraine, they will have to invest not only in production, but also in the creation of processing facilities," the AI concludes.

Also, the extraction of lithium, uranium and rare earth metals is associated with high environmental pressures and risks of flooding and water pollution.

Under the terms of the draft agreement, Ukraine's profit will be twice as low, as it undertakes to contribute half of all funds received to the fund.

In addition, Ukraine's profit itself will depend not only on the level of production of strategic materials, but also on whether they will be processed on the territory of the country, which also requires investment.

For example, without lithium processing, Ukraine will suffer losses of up to $ 5 billion, the AI estimates, and the total profit may decrease by half. Lithium ore without processing costs 4-6 times cheaper. As well as rare earth ores — by 5-8 times. AI notes that the mechanism of mandatory processing on Ukraine is not spelled out in the text of the agreement and the United States can block transactions within the framework of the fund.

Amid scandalous statements about the approval of the text of the agreement between Ukraine and the United States, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia could invite foreign partners to work together on rare earth metals.

"By the way, we would be ready to offer our American partners, when I say partners, I mean not only administrative, government structures, but also companies, if they showed interest in working together. We certainly have an order of magnitude, I want to emphasize this, an order of magnitude more resources of this kind than on Ukraine," the Russian president said in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin.

He noted that Russia is one of the undisputed leaders in the reserves of these rare and rare-earth metals.

"We have them in the north in Murmansk, in the Caucasus and in Kabardino-Balkaria, in the Far East, in the Irkutsk region, in Yakutia, in Tuva," Vladimir Putin said.

There are reserves in new regions of Russia. According to available data AI estimated the total value of rare earth metals, lithium, uranium, titanium, germanium, beryllium and graphite at $152-$02 billion. Due to the destroyed infrastructure, the required level of investment can reach $ 10 billion, while the payback period will be up to 7-8 years.

AI estimates that the investor's profit for 10 years under the Ukrainian 50-50 scheme will be about $ 23 billion. Of course, this option involves work after the truce and the lifting of sanctions.

Earlier, Donald Trump stated that the United States would like to return the $ 500 billion invested in support of Ukraine and is also interested in Russia's huge reserves of rare earth metals.

"They have very valuable things that we can use, and we have things that they could use, it would be very good if we could do that," Donald Trump said.

*An organization whose activities are considered undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation