№ 4 / 2021

For already 74 years, the last Sunday of August has been celebrated by coal miners in Russia and other CIS countries as their professional holiday - the Miner's Day.

Currently, the main coal-mining region of Russia is Kuzbass, which has recently celebrated its three-centennial anniversary. President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin took part in the celebrations. He called this event the most important date in the history of Russia. Many generations of workers in this legendary mining region, including coal miners, metallurgists, chemists, mechanical engineers and others, have brought Kuzbass its world-wide fame. The head of the state noted that new jobs should be created not only in the sectors that are traditional for the region, i.e. coal mining, metallurgy and chemical industries, but it is necessary to diversify the economy of Kuzbass. With this, the President outlined the prospects for Kuzbass development.

As a mining specialist who has devoted a considerable part of his life to Kuzbass, I am far from being indifferent to the future of coal mining in this region, especially in view of the global and at the same time liberal policy of the so-called decarbonization (the green revolution and refusal to use hydrocarbons). I am deeply convinced that the interest of Russian business in coal mining and coal use will not fade away at least in the medium term.

I can provide examples of several infrastructure projects, and there are quite a few of them.

The largest Russian project to mine and export coking coal is the Elga deposit, which reserves amount to over 2 billion tons. Its commercial development began a decade ago, the Elga workers' settlement was built, and a 321-kilometer railway line that connected the deposit with the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway was opened to traffic. The actual start of Elga's development is associated with the Mechel Company and its main shareholder Igor V. Zyuzin, who invested a lot of energy and efforts in implementation of this ambitious project.

The new owner of the project, the A-Property Company, plans to invest 130 billion rubles into creation of a giant coal cluster. This will make it possible to reach a 10-fold increase in coal production from 4.3 to 45 million tons per year by 2023.

At the same time, production of finished products should reach 30 million tons helping to create 20 thousand new jobs.

The Elgaugol Company, together with Russian Railways, is planning to build another latitudinal railroad line in the Far East, which would connect the Elga coking coal deposit in Yakutia to the Pacific Ocean.

The East Mining Company (EMCO), a leading producer of thermal coals, launched a unique project to create a Green Coal Cluster in the Uglegorsk District of the Sakhalin Region in the Far East of Russia.

The most ambitious project, part of the Green Coal Cluster, is the construction of a wind farm in the Sakhalin Region with a total capacity of 67.2 MW. This will be the most powerful wind farm in the Far East, comprising 16 wind turbines located in areas with high wind potential. Apart from the rugged topography, what makes this project unique is that the wind farm is constructed to satisfy the company's needs for power supply to all of its production facilities. Two sites have been identified for installation of the wind turbines, and they will be monitored for the wind load until the end of 2021.

Another joint project between the company and the BELAZ automaker is the development of an electric-powered dump truck with the payload of 220 tons. BELAZ has already demonstrated operation of its prototype BELAZ-7530E diesel-trolley truck. In the nearest future, the first trolley trucks will commence their work at the Solntsevo coal strip mine. The use of such vehicles will significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the Sakhalin Region.

Another EMCO's large-scale "Green" project is already under construction. This is a trunk coal conveyor, the longest in Russia with the length of 23 km. The project fuses state-of-the-art technologies and advanced environmental standards. This conveyor will reduce load on the public roads, eliminate the need to transport coal by motor vehicles, and deliver coal in the most environmentally friendly and globally recognized way. Assembly and installation of the equipment is currently underway on the site.

The interests of Russian business in the Arctic are also vested in projects to develop natural resources of oil, gas, coal and ores. During the next 2022 year, Russian miners and the mining community will celebrate two anniversaries: 300 years of the national coal industry and the 75th anniversary of the Miner's Day.

I congratulate all the readers of the Mining Industry Journal on our professional holiday, the Miner's Day, and I wish all of you to stay healthy in the challenging epidemiological situation we have had for the last few years, and I hope we will celebrate the anniversary events of 2022 in good health.

Yu.N. Malyshev, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, President of the Academy of Mining Sciences, Editor-in-Chief of the Mining Industry Journal