Syradasay is the northernmost project of the Yenisei Siberia

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Two strategic directions are named as national projects of the XXI century in Russia - development, "new development" of the Far East and the Arctic.

The extreme unevenness of the population density and the intensity of the economic development of Russia took shape for several centuries, this is a kind of legacy of the Middle Ages, which neither the Russian Empire nor the Soviet Union could cope with

The time has come, if not to deal with these problems once and for all, then at least to start solving them consciously and on a large scale.

Both of these projects were formulated by Vladimir Putin, but one must be aware that this work is for many decades to come. If you recall the old terminology, then "If you want to become Heartland - become it, no one else will give this title."

There is a lot of work ahead, but only the one walking will master the road, and the steps must be taken intelligently, having calculated the algorithm of actions in advance. In recent years, the northernmost transport artery of the planet, the Northern Sea Route, has begun to develop at an unprecedented pace.

The record cargo turnover indicator, achieved with tremendous pressure during the Soviet years - almost seven million tons per year, was surpassed almost three times in 2018, modern Russia approached the mark of 20 million tons.

In contrast to the promising projects for the development of the Far East, developed by the government of the Russian Federation, but have not developed into something concrete, for the development of the NSR, the task is set quite specifically - by 2024 it is necessary to increase the cargo turnover to an annual 80 million tons.

Such detailing will make it possible to objectively assess the results of the government's work, which is also important.

Green energy myths and the reality of the coal industry

The main growth in cargo turnover is planned through the supply of liquefied natural gas from the already operating Yamal LNG plant and from the planned Arctic LNG-2 plant. The transportation of liquid hydrocarbons produced in the Arctic region by NOVATEK, Gazprom Neft and LUKOIL will also make a contribution - all these projects will account for at least 60 million tons.

At the same time, the port of Dudinka, serving Norilsk Nickel, continues to operate, the volume of special cargo of the Ministry of Defense is gradually increasing, for the development of new deposits, the volume of various construction cargo will inevitably increase.

During the navigation period of 2019, we are waiting for trial deliveries along the NSR of fish products produced in the Far East to the European part of Russia - for this it is planned to use the world's only nuclear cargo ship, the Northern Sea Route.

But the plans for the development of the Arctic do not end there, new projects appear. In the near future, Rosatom is to start building a pit for the extraction of lead and zinc ores on Novaya Zemlya and the construction of a mining and processing plant on this island - this, of course, will also increase the load of the NSR.

Arctic

But there is another energy resource that is in demand on international markets - Arctic coal. Despite all the newfangled trends related to the environment - renewable energy sources, the growth in the use of natural gas in the energy sector as the cleanest fossil fuel, the campaign to decarbonize the energy raging in Europe, the demand for coal in the world continues to grow.

Often in the materials of all kinds of analytical centers one has to see alarmist texts of approximately the following content:

"The growth of global demand for coal is slowing down and in the next decade will not exceed 0.8% per year."

Looks alarming, doesn't it? But in 2018, the volume of international coal trade amounted to about 1.3 billion tons, and these tiny percentage indicators in absolute terms look completely different - every year the demand for coal will grow by 10.8 million tons. Even the most general data show that Russian coal companies have room to grow.

Of course, the Russian state is not present in the coal industry, we do not have a single coal company with state participation, but do not forget that more than 150 thousand people are employed in this industry, coal supplies abroad occupy the fifth position in the list of exported by Russia goods, the total tax revenue from coal companies in 2018 amounted to more than $ 12 billion.

In 2018, the total volume of coal production in Russia reached 440 million tons, surpassing the indicators of the Soviet times, while 56.2% of the produced coal was exported. Production growth in 2018 amounted to 7%, the volume of exports for the same year added 10.6%, due to the rise in world prices, the foreign exchange earnings of Russian companies also increased.

Compare with the average growth rates of the Russian economy, and you will be surprised to find that the coal industry is increasing its turnover three times faster - and after that, of course, you can continue reading bravura reports about RES as a driver of energy.

Coal for power engineering and coal for metallurgy

But quite recently, a really alarming information came in - world coal prices went down sharply, in Kuzbass companies are forced to send people on paid vacations, since the tariffs of the Russian railways, along which coal moves to customs terminals, nullify profits.

Is it only the conjuncture to blame for this situation? There are a lot of coal brands, but there are two main groups in its classification - thermal coal and coking coal. If you do not go into details very deeply, then energy brands of coal are those that are burned in the furnaces of power plants and in household furnaces, a source for obtaining thermal and electrical energy.

Coking coals differ from energy coals by the presence of vitrene (from the Latin “vitrum”, glass), and this substance melts at high temperatures and acquires the property of sintering (gluing) coal microparticles into a dense mass - coke.

Coal coke is the main process fuel for the metallurgical industry, the price of coking coal depends on the amount of vitreous in its composition.

According to this indicator, coking coals are subdivided into grades - fatty, coke, gas, coke fat and lean sintered, but these are smaller details, this article is not about them.

On average, the prices of coking coal are 2, 2 times higher than the prices of energy brands, while the prices of coking coal are much less volatile - demand is stable, the planet needs iron and steel. Stable prices enable coal companies to plan their activities much more confidently and engage in new projects.

Higher prices make it possible to “worry” about the tariffs of Russian Railways, since they do not have such a strong effect on the final margin. Increasing the production of coking coal is more actively fighting unemployment, since its implementation also requires the construction of mining and processing plants (GOK): only 30% of thermal coal is enriched, all coking coal is enriched, these are the requirements of the metallurgical industry.

Well, the ideal option for the coal business is to mine coking brands and use the services not of railways, but of sea transport, which, by definition, is cheaper than rail, not to mention road.

So we learned the cherished dream of any coal company - to extract coking coal as close to the sea coast as possible. But Russian geography also has one more secret - there are rivers in Russia, which may well be entered by sea cargo ships. Ob, Yenisei, Lena - we know them by name, as we also know in which such climatic zone their mouths are located.

This is the Arctic, and this is the transportation of products along the NSR. The general conclusion is simple - developing coking coal deposits in the Arctic region, Russia will receive two "prizes" at once: stable development of the coal industry and an increase in the NSR cargo turnover, which, in turn, will require strengthening of the shipbuilding industry - bulk carriers of reinforced ice classes will be required.

At least 30% of the cost of any ship is the cost of ship steel, which cannot be produced without coking coal, which stimulates an increase in its production - the industries are adjacent, the growth of one leads to the growth of the other, this duo turns into a powerful driver of growth for the entire economy.

Coal supplies by sea are only possible if the capacity of the Arctic ports is available or if the capacity of the Arctic ports is increased; the Arctic climate makes it mandatory to resolve the issues of power supply to these ports.

And here the coal companies will have to make a choice - to burn expensive coking coal in the boilers of power plants or to solve this problem by using other energy resources. Just to remind, the Akademik Lomonosov floating nuclear power plant has already received a license for operation from Rostekhnadzor, and St. Petersburg shipbuilders are actively working on floating CHP projects using liquefied natural gas.

Here is such an irony of fate - coal, which they sometimes manage to call "the fuel of the century before last", can become an incentive for the development of completely new, high-tech level options for generating heat and electric energy.

"Dozing" project

Here, with the "dry theory", perhaps, and finish - let's evaluate how, what and where in Russia with the Arctic deposits of coking coal. A couple of years ago, the VostokUgol company, which created a specialized division of the Arctic Mining Company, announced its project quite loudly in order to conduct exploration and production of coking coal in Taimyr.

They talked about the Lemberovskiye group of deposits, about reaching the volume of coal production of a unique type of "Arctic carbon" in the amount of up to 30 million tons per year, about the construction of two new deep-water ports near Dikson, in the immediate vicinity of which these deposits are located.

The leaders of VostokUgol confidently stated that the coal reserves in these deposits amount to at least 10 billion tons, and therefore the project being developed is serious and for a long time.

In 2018, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation published a report "on the state and use of mineral resources of the Russian Federation in 2016 and 2017", on page 70 of which there is information about the Lembergov deposits:

“In the Taimyr coal basin, VostokUgol UK LLC has discovered the Malolemberovskoye deposit with reserves of about 2 million tons of anthracite. According to the project documentation for the development of the deposit, the mining of the subsoil area is planned by open pit mining within six years with a design capacity of up to 0.5 million tons. The geological exploration program of UK VostokUgol LLC provides for the sequential study of 46 license areas with parallel infrastructure development and an increase in coal production to 10 million tons per year."

The strongly changed website of the company (articles devoted to plans to turn Dixon into the "capital of the Northern Sea Route", about contracts signed with Rosatomflot, etc. have disappeared without a trace) reports practically the same, new - only dates.

“The Malolemberovskoye field was discovered in 2016, the approved reserves are 2 million tons. At the end of 2018, the Nizhnelemberovskoye field was discovered, the approved reserves are 67 million tons. In 2019, a through license was obtained for the Lemberovskaya area site, bordering the Nizhnelemberovskoye field, the license allows exploration with associated production.

Delivery of equipment, diesel fuel and mobilization of contractors for exploration will begin during the summer navigation period."

In the "News" section there is a message that allows you to understand what the situation looks like.

“On June 6, the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region partially satisfied the claim of the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resource Use against the Arctic Mining Company (AGK) to recover the damage caused to the subsoil, ruling to recover from AGK 600, 479 million rubles. (the plaintiff insisted on 824.2 million rubles).

The court decision did not come into legal force. The Arctic Mining Company is preparing to file an appeal within the prescribed time limit, since it does not agree with the court's conclusion on causing harm to the subsoil (the dispute on this issue has been ongoing with the department for more than two years)."

There is also other news from all sorts of judicial corridors, there is no particular point in discussing them, you can simply state that the project is "on pause", how events will develop further, time will tell.

Courts, pre-trial agreements, plans for geological exploration and registered with Rosnedra coal reserves in the amount of 69 million tons, which does not correlate in any way with plans to produce 20 million tons of "Arctic carbon" per year.

The Syradasay river flows between Dikson and Dudinka

But there is also completely different news related to the implementation of the Yenisei Siberia complex investment program - there are no longer any unresolved issues with geological exploration, and there are no problems with any legal claims. The data of the "Unified fund of geological information about the subsoil" sound business dry:

“Syradasayskoe deposit, coal. Data on the area of the object: located 55 km from the navigable Yenisei Gulf and 105 km from the seaport of Dikson to the south of it.

On the Yenisei River, communication with the city of Krasnoyarsk is carried out in the summer. On the NSR, the Yenisei Bay, the Yenisei River to the city of Dudinka, the fleet of OJSC MMC Norilsk Nickel conducts year-round navigation using its own Arctic vessels of the highest ice class ARC-7 without engaging icebreaker assistance services.

5, 678 billion tons of coal of grades G, Zh, K and OS, medium-ash, low-sulfur, have been put on the state record. Coal seams with a number of more than 20 and a thickness of 1.0 to 10.0 meters allow open pit mining."

The estimate of the volume of reserves was carried out relatively recently, in 2008, when an auction was held to acquire a license for additional exploration and development of the Syradasay field. At the second stage of the auction, the winner for 33.6 million rubles was Severnaya Zvezda, at that time a subsidiary of Norilsk Nickel.

At present, Severnaya Zvezda has become a part of the international private investment corporation AEON, of which Sberbank is a strategic partner.

In April 2019, Sberbank and AEON signed a separate agreement on the development of the Syradasay field - the bank is ready to participate in financing its development project, at the first stage of which, according to Roman Trotsenko, head of AEON, about 35 billion rubles (about half a billion euros) will be required.

The first stage in the development of the Syradasay field is the construction of a section on the first of three sections, South-West, located along the Syradasay river and covering an area of 615 square kilometers. The places here are surprisingly airy, the climate is fabulous.

The average annual temperature is -11.4 degrees, the average January temperature is -48.1 degrees, the record temperature in August is +26.9 degrees. It is warm here during the day - it lasts from May 5 to August 10, and after a short twilight there comes a cool night time - from November 11 to February 1.

But for nine whole days a year there is no wind here, it is completely calm and you can enjoy nature. It is amazing here - nothing grows here except moss, but there are many and several types of it. The places are calm - there is no crime, for the last thousand years there has not been a single accident due to the complete absence of the population and any roads.

In the fifth year of operation of this site, the annual production volume should increase to 5 million tons - yes, it is in such conditions. An EIA is already ready for the future open-cut mine, an environmental impact assessment is a necessary part of the documentation for any major infrastructure project, and Severnaya Zvezda is planning a really large and long-term project.

The second stage of the development of the Syradasay deposit should increase the volume of coal production to 12 million tons per year - they will go to the mine, which is also to be built.

A shift camp with all the necessary household infrastructure, coal warehouses and warehouses for explosives will appear here, and all the treatment facilities required in such cases will be erected. The deposit is located in the interfluve of the Yenisei, Pyasina and Syradasai, and the northern rivers must be treated with maximum care.

The work with the dumps of the open pit was calculated in advance, the overburden is to be very large-scale - due to the thick layer of permafrost, the volume of waste rock will be about 32 million cubic meters.

If you want to fail, take the lead

The details of the GOK projects have not yet been found in open sources, but this is not surprising - the final investment decision will appear no earlier than the end of this year, and the problem is not only in the financial part.

Let us recall that, for example, the activities of the Prirazlomnaya oil platform on the Arctic shelf are regulated by about 180 regulatory documents and 20 government agencies. The analytical online magazine Geoenergetika.ru has great respect for the creative activities of the Russian government, we are sure that if it received the task to design the labyrinth, the Minotaur would nervously smoke on the sidelines, suffering from envy and admiration.

We hope that Vladimir Putin's demand for the scriptwriters of this amazing action to submit a draft of a separate law on a special system of preferences for investors in the Arctic until the fall of 2019 will be able to stop these impulses of souls.

This law should provide not only to tame this riot of bureaucratic creativity, but also preferential profit rates, lowering the coefficients for the mineral extraction tax and the declarative procedure for refunding value added tax for exported goods.

We understand that this sounds upsetting for some gentlemen, but this is the harsh reality:

“Taking into account the peculiarities of the Arctic, preferences for investors should be and will be here, as they say, even more advanced, more stable,” the President of the Russian Federation specified. - The task is to make the Northern Sea Route safe and profitable for shippers, attractive both in terms of service quality and price.

The payment for icebreaker escort of vessels should be competitive and reasonable. That is why the state is investing in this area in order to minimize the tariff burden on carriers and on business."

The quote is from a speech by Vladimir Putin at the V International Arctic Forum, which took place on March 9-10, 2019.

Coal animation

The preliminary plan for the development of the Syradasay deposit provides, as already mentioned, an annual production of 12 million tons of coal. Further - extremely simple arithmetic, which shows that with the field's reserves of 6 billion tons, "Severnaya Zvezda" begins a project, the implementation period of which may be about … 500 years.

It seems that it was this time horizon that led to a small change in the project. It was preliminary planned to build a 120 km long railway to Dikson in order to organize the transshipment of coal to bulk carriers there.

But Dixon would have to expand significantly - to carry out dredging, build warehouses and piers, build a thermal power plant, housing, and so on. But the distance from the Syradasay field to the Yenisei coast is two times less, and the volume of work on the construction of the port is practically the same.

Therefore, in the description of the development of this cluster in the complex investment project Yenisei Siberia, it is said not only about the open pit and the GOK, but also about the construction of the Yenisei seaport up to 15.5 meters deep with a quay wall of 500 meters and the capacity of the first stage of 5 million tons per year. The second stage of the port will appear when work begins on the Central and South-Eastern sections of the field, when the mining and processing complex reaches full capacity.

The Government of the Krasnoyarsk Territory estimates the socio-economic significance of the project quite high: at least 3'000 jobs for the construction period and 950 jobs, when the first stage of the cluster's development will be implemented. The project for the development of the cluster also includes a plan for the construction of an airport, which has always been and is of great importance for the Far North, for the Arctic, since it increases the connectivity of the vast territory of our country.

But the contribution of the Syradasay field to the Russian economy does not end there - Severnaya Zvezda will need ice-class cargo ships, and several icebreakers will be needed to operate the port all year round.

The project should reach a capacity of 5 million tons of coal in 2023, which will allow the project to contribute to the fulfillment of the task of the President of Russia - 80 million tons of cargo turnover along the NSR by 2024.

We have already mentioned that the coals of the Syradasay deposit belong to the grades G, Zh, K and OS - in fact, their "mixed" and gives the optimal mixture for coal coke with all the consequences mentioned at the beginning of this article.

Increased demand, fairly stable and high prices, confident operation of the cluster, the emergence of a new settlement in Taimyr. It is worth keeping in mind one more point: Severnaya Zvezda is registered in the city of Norilsk, that is, the company's taxes will go to the regional budget, which will allow it to engage in other development projects, which are enough in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in general, and even more so in Taimyr.

Taimyr - mysterious and not fully explored

As a small "lyrical digression" I would like to remind you how unique the Taimyr Peninsula is - one of the most amazing and most inaccessible regions of Russia, hell and the entire planet.

The peninsula got its name from the name of Lake Taimyr - the second largest lake in Russia after Baikal and the northernmost lake in the world, its northernmost point is located at the 76th degree of latitude. From west to east, Lake Taimyr stretches for 170 kilometers, the width is on average 20 kilometers, but its dimensions vary greatly depending on the season.

Taimyr is a flowing lake, the largest river flowing into it is Upper Taimyr, followed by Lower Taimyr, which carries the lake water to the Yenisei. The lake is located on the territory of the Taimyr nature reserve, with a total area of 2.8 million hectares, which consists of four separate clusters.

The "Ary-Mas" site with an area of 15.6 thousand hectares is the northernmost forest on the planet, the experimental training ground "Bikada" with an area of almost a million hectares was created to acclimatize musk oxen brought from Canada.

In 1975, in the lower reaches of the Bikada-Nguoma river, 50 individuals of these animals, by now, according to experts, this herd has grown to 14'000 heads, some of them have gone far south on their own, to the Putorana plateau area.

The rapidly growing herd of musk oxen is used to settle these animals throughout the Arctic - small stocks move without haste to acclimatize to Yakutia, Yamal, to other regions, but their "small homeland" is the same - Taimyr.

Star wound

In the northeast of Taimyr, the Khatanga River flows into the Khatanga Bay of the Laptev Sea, which has a tributary - the Popigai River, the name of which is translated from the Nganasan language as "Rocky River".

In the basin of the middle reaches of this river in 1946, a geological expedition led by D. V. Kozhinova discovered the crater basin - a multi-ring structure with a diameter of about 100 km and a maximum depth of up to 200 meters. By 1970, the nature of the origin of this crater became completely clear, the UNESCO commission in 1991 classified the Popigai astrobleme as a natural monument of planetary significance of the first magnitude.

This meteorite crater shares the fourth largest in the world in size with the Manicouagan crater in Canada. The Earth's meeting with an 8-kilometer asteroid that formed the Popigai crater took place about 36 million years ago - an impact directed from the northeast caused a temperature rise of 2,000 degrees, as a result, about 1,750 cubic kilometers were melted, turning into dust and gas rocks.

Popigai crater (Russia)

Interestingly, everyone knows about the Tunguska meteorite, a reserve of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been created on the site of its supposed fall, but no traces of the impact have been found.

In Popigai crater, impact rocks can be touched by anyone who manages to get here - but we’ll hardly be mistaken if we assume that 90% of those reading this article hear about the Popigai astrobleme for the first time.

Before geological surveys in the Popigai meteorite crater, only kimberlite rocks were considered the only primary source of diamonds. But the discovery and study of the Popigai meteorite crater revealed new bedrock diamond-bearing rocks - lamproites and impactites.

Impactites were formed due to the remelting of crystalline rocks during impact collisions with cosmic bodies. So far, the Popigai deposit of impact diamonds is considered the only one in the world, although other impact craters are known on Earth as well.

Impactites on the territory of the Popigai depression in many places come to the surface and go to a depth of 1.5 km. Their area is over 1,750 square kilometers. Diamonds are scattered throughout the basin and are found almost everywhere, both in rocks and in placers.

They were formed during shock compression of rocks, when graphite goes directly into diamond. Popigai diamonds have exceptional abrasive ability - 1, 8-2, 4 times more than natural and synthetic diamonds.

It is most likely that the high abrasive ability is associated with its structure - the grains of this composite have sizes from the first tens to the first hundreds of nanometers, and they are entangled into a fibrous structure.

In the 70s of the last century, the State Commission on Reserves registered two deposits of impact diamonds - Udarnoye and Skalnoye, their total estimated volume is 147 billion carats, which is much more than all the proven reserves of ordinary diamonds in the world. The industrial development of the Popigai astrobleme at the present time is impeded, in addition to geography, climate, regional features, two more factors.

There is no acceptable enrichment technology, it needs to be created from scratch, while Popigai diamonds are not available on the market, which makes it impossible to determine their prices. However, this whole diamond topic is not for Geoenergy, we just wanted to talk about some of the wonders of Taimyr.

For those who find this topic interesting, we can offer to independently study the book, one of the co-authors of which, Viktor Lyudvigovich Masaitis, is a geologist who managed to prove the meteorite origin of the Popigai crater, and draw attention to a very recent article on the same topic.

The industrial cluster for the production of coal concentrates from coking coal from the Syradasai deposit in the northwest of Taimyr is only one of 32 investment projects in Yenisei Siberia.

Coal reserves have been registered with the state, a detailed project of the first stage open-pit mine has been developed, and its environmental impact assessment has been drawn up. Severnaya Zvezda, an investor company, has achieved financial support for the project from Sberbank, is considered a priority for the government of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, there is a hope that this year our respected government will be able to fulfill the direct order of the President of Russia on the need to create a system of preferences for companies investing in arctic projects.

There are really enough factors contributing to the successful implementation of the project, so we hope that in the near future we will definitely have to return to this topic.