The university’s rector Vladimir Litvinenko showed the guest the university’s infrastructure, as well as its unique collection of minerals, models, and natural samples related to mining.
Maxim Oreshkin admired the rich museum exposition, to the creation of which contributed many generations of Russian and foreign scientists. The replenishment of the collection has not ever stopped.
The presidential aide for economics toured the offshore oil and gas production training and research centers, as well as the laboratories created jointly with Orica, Schneider Electric, and Caterpillar. For each of the centers, special software was developed, the effective operation of which Oreshkin commented on.
It should be noted that Mining University is also planning to open a BELAZ innovation center at its premises. The rector of St. Petersburg Mining University Vladimir Litvinenko and Sergey Nikiforovich, general director of OAO BELAZ signed a corresponding agreement last April. According to Oreshkin, KAMAZ is also developing unmanned high-capacity vehicles that could compete in the market with Komatsu, Caterpillar, Hitachi, and Liebherr products.
The rector of the oldest Russian technical school told about the work of the International Center of Competences in Mining Engineering Education under the auspices of UNESCO, which aims to create conditions for academic mobility and formation of a unified system of certification for the title of “Professional Engineer”. The document on the creation of the Center was signed in Paris in March 2018 by the Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation Alexander Novak and the Director-General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay.
In the course of the meeting with Rector Vladimir Litvinenko, Presidential aide for economics Maxim Oreshkin discussed the formation of a “green economy” in our country. The parties noted that the prospects and speed of its formation largely depend on whether scientists and businesses will be able to increase the role of hydrogen as a raw material for various sectors of the economy: transportation, metallurgy, and energy.
Vladimir Litvinenko told Maksim Oreshkin about the scientific research aimed at increasing the safety of producing, storing, and transporting the lightest natural gas, which is conducted at the university today. In addition, he shared his opinion on the barriers to implementing hydrogen initiatives in the context of sustainable development of the global energy industry. Among them, for example, high-temperature formation of nitrogen oxide, a toxic substance dangerous for human health, during the complicated kinematic reaction of H2 combustion.
In July Mikhail Mishustin, prime minister of the RF signed an order about the creation of an interdepartmental working group for the development of hydrogen energy. The group is headed by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, while the scientific advisor is Vladimir Litvinenko, Rector of St. Petersburg Mining University.
