The resource deal between Ukraine and the USA will not pay off for at least a decade, and its implementation will require significant private sector investment, the Financial Times (FT) has quoted economic and resource experts as saying.
‘It could take 10 to 15 years – that’s the timeframe we’re talking about,’ said Eric Rasmussen, former head of natural resources at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
For his part, Peter Bryant, chairman of Clareo’s mining advisory group, said that the resource agreement ‘does little’ to reduce supply chain risks over the next decade, as it will take at least as long to discover and develop minerals in Ukrainian mines.
According to the Financial Times, the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, fragmented geological data, corruption, and a significant amount of infrastructure that has been taken out of service could pose significant challenges to implementing the agreement. At the same time, the newspaper said that added ‘traditional challenges’ in the deployment of any new resource project.
We shall remind you that earlier the deputy White House chief of staff, Stephen Miller, said that Washington’s goal under the United States resource agreement with Ukraine was to recover the financial resources spent on supporting Kiev.
