The ‘Global
Mining Industry: Challenges and Prospects’ session is set to take place as part
of SPIEF 2019. The session will be addressed by Chair of the Professorship in
Mining and Surface Mining, Faculty of Geosciences, Geoengineering and Mining,
Freiberg University of Mining and Technology Carsten Drebenstedt, Deputy
Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation and
Head of the Federal Agency for Mineral Resources Evgeny Kiselev, Chief
Executive Officer of Uralkali Dmitry Osipov, Vice Rector for Scientific
Research, Doctor of Economics, and Professor of Saint-Petersburg Mining
University Igor Sergeev, First Vice President of the Russian Copper Company
Oleg Sienko, and President and Chief Executive Officer of Outotec Markku
Terasvasara. Discussion will be moderated by President of the Mikhailov and
Partners Group of Companies Marianna Maksimovskaya.
Population
growth, urbanization, social and economic development, and even the demand for
a green, low-carbon economy contribute to the growth of mineral and metal
consumption. The development of new technologies also leads to a demand for
special technological metals. One example is an increase in the production of
electric cars, which leads experts to predict a copper shortage in the market
by 2020 of 130 thousand tonnes. The number of electric vehicles in the world is
expected to reach approximately 26 million units.
However,
there are a number of challenges that face growing demand for basic materials
today, such as depleted reserves in mined fields, the need to explore and
develop new deposits in hard-to-reach places, limited resources for mining and
mineral processing, and the need to innovate to maintain the profitability of
mining and to keep up levels of global production of basic materials.
“Russia accounts for 7% of the world’s copper
reserves. Our country occupies fourth place for this indicator. Meanwhile, in
terms of production in 2018 (710,000 tonnes), Russia rounds out the top ten for
countries with the largest copper reserves. It is obvious that the domestic
copper industry has not yet reached the limit of its growth potential.
Moreover, all forecasts indicate an increase in the consumption of this metal
in the future”, Sienko said.
Discussion
participants will consider what is being done today in the industry for the
effective exploration and development of existing and new fields, what
technologies are in demand among market participants, what effect the decisions
made by owners have on meeting the growing demand for raw materials and solving
sustainable development problems, and analyze the factors going into industry
development in the future