Ukraine: Poltava Iron Ore Mine
This was totally surreal and insane – I am still in shock that I got a chance to visit and see one of the largest open pit iron ore mines in the world – Poltava Mine near Kremenchuk in Ukraine. Here lies a 50km long deposit rich in iron ore and a mining operation was established and still thrives, with proven reserves of around 1.4 billion tons (the largest iron ore deposit in Europe) and estimated operating capacity well until 2050s. There are two huge open pit mines here along the deposit line, and the iron ore is mined by the open-pit method by digging and crushing the rock (ferruginous quartzite), transporting the material in massive trucks (some are Belarusian BelAZs, world’s largest trucks). The panoramic view of the Poltava Mine from the rim is totally stupendous – the mine is approximately 7km long, 2km wide at the broadest point and over 400m deep! From the rim, the trucks look like tiny little ants crawling from a massive black hole. The trucks take the ore out and then it’s moved by rail to the processing facility, where it is ground and crushed and then concentrated into a higher iron content product and fire cooked to make iron ore pellets with an average iron content of 65%. This mine is the fifth largest supplier of iron ore pellets in the world! The mining and production company is Swiss-headquartered, London-listed (it’s actually part of FTSE 250), and majority-owned by a Ukrainian oligarch. Besides the actual mine, there is also a spot where you can see and climb all the mining trucks (awesome!), and then visit a museum explaining all that I just wrote in this post.
