production, discuss the implementation of sustainable development principles, as well as training of competent engineering personnel.
The opening ceremony of the 5th International Scientific and Practical Conference “Mining in the 21st Century: Technology, Science, Education” took place at St. Petersburg Mining University on Wednesday, October 27. The conference was attended by top managers of the largest Russian and foreign companies such as Polyus, SUEK, Orica, and many others as well as by the representatives of the scientific and educational community.
The leitmotif of almost all speeches and discussions on the sidelines was the need to increase the efficiency of production and processing of raw materials, taking into account current realities. These are the following: the content of valuable components in the ore is getting lower and the costs of minimizing the anthropogenic impact on nature are getting higher. At the same time, humanity’s demand for natural resources continues to grow, which means that to remain successful, the core business must “keep its hand on the pulse” and constantly modernize its production chains by introducing the best available equipment.
Vladimir Litvinenko, Rector of Mining University, opened the forum. He drew attention to the fact that the mining industry today, especially in the last 2-3 years, is experiencing enormous pressure from several new-generation politicians and businessmen. These are people who control IT corporations, the cryptocurrency market, renewable energy, and seek to redirect the financial flows that are necessary for the exploration and development of mineral deposits to their address.
“This situation threatens the stability of the world economy because the mining and oil and gas sectors are still the foundation of the economy. To be sure of this, it is enough to recall that more than half of the total global trade turnover is trade in traditional energy carriers. But it is not just the economy that is under threat today. After all, the new establishment seeks to erase borders and create a single space of planetary-scale in which it will sell its goods and services. This system does not take into account national interests and levels the influence of heads of state on the socio-economic development of the countries they rule,” said Vladimir Litvinenko.
The rector drew miners’ attention to the fact that the transformation of the economy and its cornerstone laws has already partially taken place in the West. In Western countries, lobbying rather than supply and demand is getting more and more important in the implementation of various commercial initiatives. This is especially obvious in the example of the construction of the so-called “green economy” in Europe.
“The value of the eight basic metals demanded by the green economy has risen by 300-2500% in recent years. Naturally, those people who control their extraction or processing have reaped huge profits because of this state of affairs. But what benefit has society gained from this? Has the global emission of greenhouse gases been reduced? No, it has not. The consequence of reduced investment in the mining and oil and gas sectors and the reallocation of these funds towards renewable energy, huge government subsidies for the construction of wind turbines, was only the biggest energy crisis in Europe and Asia. And the emissions only grow, because due to high gas prices in many regions of the world began to burn much more coal and fuel oil in power plants. That is, in this case, we are not talking about the fight against climate change, as adherents of the ‘green economy’ are trying to present, but about an increase under the plausible pretext of their personal income," Vladimir Litvinenko stated.
He stressed that the mining and oil & gas industries will be the foundation of the economic prosperity of mankind for many decades to come. At the same time, mining and refining companies have to work on minimizing their environmental impact and increasing their energy efficiency, which, among other things, helps reduce their carbon footprint. The success of implementing these ideas largely depends on the level of integration of science and business, as well as the ability of core companies to significantly reduce the shortage of competent engineering personnel. Today, this is one of the most urgent tasks facing the mining industry.
“In some Russian regions up to 60% of engineering positions are vacant. This is too much. This is partly due to the illusions that the younger generation draws from social networks. They say that the ‘old economy,’ which is based on traditional energy, mining, and industry, is a dead horse, and it’s time to get off of it. The future lies in services, electric vehicles, and renewable sources. That, of course, is not the case. And the miners must convince young people of this, must show them that their actions are guided, among other things, by the green agenda. This requires investing in our sustainable development and in minimizing the anthropogenic impact on the environment. For example, many of our partners from the Russian Copper Company, Novatek, PhosAgro, and other flagships of the Russian mineral resources industry spend from 10 to 20% of their dividends on scientific support of various projects and the social sphere. They do not advertise this activity and do not try to use it as a PR,” summed up Litvinenko.
Other participants of the conference agreed with him. Thus, Alexey Noskov, Managing Director of Polyus Aldan, stated with grief the fact that graduates of technical universities prefer to stay in big cities and work there as anything, even as waiters, as long as they don’t go to Siberia and the Far East where most of the deposits are concentrated.
“The shortage of personnel is enormous. That is why the management of mining companies must pay much more attention to attracting students for internships, encouraging their interest in further employment, and working to popularize the profession in general. If we take our company as an example, we have had certain success in this area. If six years ago we trained about 15 students from different universities, now we have about 130 people. But this is still not enough. We would like to increase the number of trainees and, no less importantly, the period of their stay at the enterprises. At least up to two months a year,” believes Alexey Noskov.
Vasily Smetanin, Director of Development of SUEK-Kuzbass, Sergey Mozer, Operations Director of the Russian division of Orica CIS Corporation, Vadim Petrov, Vice-Rector for additional education at MISIS, and many other scientists and representatives of mining companies also took part in the conference opening ceremony.
Valery Zakharov, Director of the Institute of Integrated Subsoil Use Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted in his speech the lack of financing of the core science by the state. He also called on the business community to invest more actively in research related to the improvement of the profitability of production and reduction of the technogenic burden on the biosphere. Several other delegates focused on the exchange of experience in the field of integrated development of mineral resources.
Over the next two days, the forum participants will discuss such topics as “modern geo technologies of solid minerals deposits development,” “industrial safety and labour protection at mining enterprises,” “digital transformation of mining” and several others. The conference ends on Thursday, October 28.
