Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University, Magnitogorsk, Russia:

S. E. Gavrishev, Head of a Chair, Professor, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, ormpi-cg@mail.ru
S. N. Kornilov, Head of a Chair, Doctor of Engineering Sciences

Institute of Integrated Mineral Resources Development – IPKON, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia:
I. A. Pytalev, Researcher, Candidate of Engineering Sciences
I. V. Gaponova, Researcher

The article gives a retrospective analysis of development of mining companies in the Ural region and reviews the methods used to enhance the production efficiency over the period of some years past. Based on the revealed factors which exert negative influence on economic and ecological efficiency of mines, the authors propose and substantiate the methods aimed at creation of technological areas in the course of open pit mining of hard minerals. Such areas represent an anthropogenic geo-resource to enable better and more complete subsoil use. For the appraisal of the potential offered by the anthropogenic geo-resource, based on the notion of the geo-resource value, the models are developed to calculate parameters of minetechnical structures as independent objects with the pre-set useful quality. In the industrially advanced regions of the country, it is the best way to create and use technological areas for storage of mining and processing waste. Among other things, this approach allows simultaneous elimination of mined-out open pit voids. This method agrees with the current international trends in the area of land reclamation and ensures implementation of the integrated environmental rehabilitation of territories. The proposed creation and use of technological areas is possible based on the developed process layouts for placement of mining and processing waste with regard to the state of aggregation and hazard category. The target of the creation and use of a technological area should be selected based on an algorithm elaborated with account for the performance phase of a mine, remoteness of a mine from the potential sources of industrial waste, the waste conversion technology as well as the value of this anthropogenic geo-resource. The implementation of the newly proposed approach to the integrated utilization of subsoil areas allows enhancing the economic efficiency of mining companies at the concurrent improvement of ecological situation, financial stability and employment in a region.
This study has been supported by the Russian Science Foundation, Grant No. 14-37-00050-P.

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