TECHMET, a privately held company run by South African mining entrepreneur, Brian Menell, plans to develop a lithium mine in Ukraine.
Menell told the Financial Times his company had been looking at the Dobra project in central Ukraine since 2023, but acknowleged its development would be given a push when a minerals development agreement is signed between the US and Ukraine.
A minerals agreement was supposed to be finalised last month as part of an over-arching peace deal with Russia. That was until a fractious meeting between Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump, the US president, derailed the process.
Menell told the newspaper that if the minerals deal were to happen, “it would certainly enhance our interest, and would create a framework that would justify doing more, bigger, quicker”. The US government is a shareholder in Techmet, a $1.2bn Dublin-headquartered investment fund in which the Qatar Investment Authority, Mercuria and Lansdowne Partners are also shareholders.
TechMet’s investment partner in the Dobra lithium project is Ronald Lauder, a billionaire friend of US President Donald Trump, said the FT. Lauder has also been a big advocate of US efforts to buy Greenland, it added.
Techmet was formed during the first Trump administration, when the US International Development Finance Corporation invested and became a shareholder. It aims to further US and European interests in critical minerals, and reduce China’s dominance of the supply chain.
Dobra is one of a number of major lithium deposits in Ukraine, including Polokhivske and Shevchenko, which is in Russian-controlled territory, said the FT.
Techmet was also open to developing other critical minerals in Ukraine including graphite, uranium and titanium resources. “We hope that we could be a big part of them doing bigger things, quicker, and being bolder on the global critical minerals supply chain stage,” said Menell.
“All of these critical mineral opportunities in Ukraine, require time, investment and management,” he said. “I think it [the critical minerals deal] is positive, assuming it now happens, and assuming it is implemented in a way that is effective, which is not going to be easy.”
