The Gdańsk Maritime Authority states that the ongoing additional geological analyses are to be completed at the end of March. These analyses will determine what percentage of the discovered deposit can be extracted during the works carried out as part of the construction of the canal cutting through the Vistula Spit. Based on these findings, a potential decision will be made on applying for an extraction concession. Will the information, reported not only by the media – so frequently that it seems everyone has come to believe it – about a deposit of amber worth approximately PLN 900 million, be confirmed?
At the end of February, news spread across the country that „valuable material was discovered during the construction of the Vistula Spit canal,” while their existence has been known at least since the 1980s. Documentation from the „Geological documentation of the Kąty Rybackie amber deposit,” approved at the end of January 2019 and held in the Central Geological Archive, indicates that there is just under 7 tonnes of raw material there. According to Michał Kowalski, provincial geologist at the Marshal's Office in Gdańsk, it is difficult to rely on these results: „Two deposit fields have been preliminarily explored, so it is impossible to reliably estimate anything based on them. Moreover, the amber content in the boreholes did not meet the so-called threshold values of parameters defining the deposit and its boundaries for individual minerals specified in the regulation of the minister of environment, which further makes these results unreliable.”.
The final documentation is in category D, which means that the margin of error in estimating the average values of the reservoir and resource parameters may exceed 40%. On this basis, it is not possible to apply for a mining licence – only documentation in higher categories, from C1 upwards, authorises such an application. Whether the category of the deposits can be upgraded depends on the results of the studies currently being carried out. Even if a decision is made to exploit the deposits, it will be difficult to achieve the expected profit of 900 mln zł – the amber found there is fine-grained and therefore unattractive to the jewellery industry, and consequently does not have a particularly high value.
„Amber hunters have long known that amber occurs on the Vistula Spit. I assume that, as with other deposits, the dominant raw material there will also be small pieces – currently retailing at 50-80 zł. Undoubtedly, some portion, but likely a small one – because that is simply the nature of raw material from Polish deposits – will be larger pieces, around 20g, for which one pays approximately 4,000 zł today for jewellery quality. No matter how you calculate it, you won't get 900 million [zł] from this…” – concluded Krzysztof Twardowski, who has been professionally engaged in the search and extraction of amber for over 20 years.