ALROSA announced the preliminary results of sales of rough and polished diamonds for November of this year. Their volume amounted to $334 million, while the company’s total revenue for the 11 months reached $3.9 billion. This is significantly higher than in previous years.
The leader of the global diamond industry competes not only on quantity but also quality. In 2017, for example, three unique stones - bright yellow, pink, and purple-pink - were mined at once at the Ebelyakh deposit in Yakutia. One of them after being cut was named “The Rose Ghost” and was sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $26.6 million, which gave it the status of the most expensive diamond produced in our country.
This placer deposit is being developed by Almazy Anabara, which is a part of ALROSA Group. It would seem that such local successes as well as the market conditions in general allow, if not to rest on their laurels, then at least not to think too much about tomorrow. Nevertheless, the mining giant's strategy does not imply complacency.
“To do your job decently, you have to be highly qualified and constantly grow, because technology is advancing, and otherwise you risk falling far behind your competitors. The wave of digitalization is not yet upon us. However, it is quite obvious that innovations in this area are transforming the production process more and more every year, which means that we need to acquire new knowledge and skills. This also means that we need to speak the same language with the young people who come to work for us,” says Ivan Zhelonkin, leading geologist at Almazy Anabara.
In December, along with a group of his colleagues, he took part in a refresher course at St. Petersburg Mining University under the “Management in Mineral Resource Companies” program. He explained his choice of the site by the fact that it is one of the best Russian institutions of higher education that trains engineers and geologists. The opportunity to improve the level of their competencies here and to go to the Hermitage, Russian Museum, or Alexandrinsky Theater in your spare time is also a kind of encouragement from the management.
As the director of the Center of Continuing Professional Education of Mining University Alexey Blinov says, this year the university has offered 90 advanced training and retraining courses attended by more than a thousand specialists from the mining and fuel and energy industries as well as from other sectors. The plan is to increase their number by more than three times.
“Naturally, we use modern technology. For example, we have an electronic digital platform that hosts online courses, including those using augmented and virtual reality, as well as videos and browser-based labs. However, the face-to-face training format is a priority. It allows us to give students the entire set of competencies they need, to introduce them in practice to the work of our partners located in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. Special attention during such visits to enterprises is paid to innovations related to energy efficiency and energy saving,” said Alexey Blinov
According to him, more and more companies, first of all, big corporations, begin to realize how important it is to deal with the advanced training of their current employees. This is perfectly logical because the process of knowledge obsolescence becomes more and more rapid. And what was once taught to today’s engineers in technical universities is often no longer relevant.
“Today, learning is a continuous process, including self-education. If we talk about advanced training courses, then, in my opinion, in order not to compromise the work, we should take them about once a year,” says Alexei Grachev, head of the strategic development department of BELAZ-HOLDING MCU.
He, as well as the representatives of Almazy Anabara, has recently completed training at Mining University in the program “Improving Efficiency of Operation and Repair of Mining Machines and Equipment”. The Belarusian automotive giant has signed a full-fledged cooperation agreement with St. Petersburg Mining University, which implies, among other things, the creation of the BELAZ Competence Center in the city on the Neva. In addition to training stands simulating individual elements of mining dump trucks and other mining machines, for example, an operator workstation will be installed there, allowing real-time remote control of machinery deployed hundreds of kilometres away.
“In today’s world, a business that wants to grow simply must pay attention to personnel development. And our holding company, of course, is no exception. We have become familiar with basic quarry design software, industrial safety legislation, and many applied disciplines related to the economics of the production cycle of mining enterprises. This is necessary to better understand the needs of our customers and subsequently offer them the best solutions related both to the most efficient use of the existing equipment and design of new products,” explained Alexei Grachev.
The postulate of lifelong learning is becoming increasingly popular. However, for it to become a real trend, more emphasis on state policy is needed. For example, the introduction of tax incentives for those companies that employ the highest possible number of employees who have taken advanced training courses in the last few years.
Even a bolder, but, according to some experts, a necessary step could be the introduction of universal certification of specialists in the cornerstone industries of the domestic economy. And the creation of a register of professional engineers, entering which is a prerequisite for a successful career in the mineral sector. Such a solution would increase the level of personnel competence, labour productivity, and, most importantly, production safety.
At present, participation in this kind of project is purely voluntary. For example, the title of “Professional Mining Engineer” or “Privileged Mining Engineer,” which is recognized by the British Technical Council, can be obtained at the International Competence Center for Mining Engineering Education under the auspices of UNESCO. It was established on the basis of St. Petersburg Mining University and has an extensive network of representative offices both in Russia and abroad.
