Gold mining company UGC, Chelyabinsk, Russia:

K. I. Strukov, President
S. N. Plotnikov, Chief Dresser, e-mail: s.plotnikov@ugold.ru

JSC “Irgiredmet”, Irkutsk, Russia:
Yu. L. Nikolaev, Senior Researcher of the Laboratory of Metallurgy

Research Institute of Comprehensive Exploitation of Mineral Resources (IPKON) RAS, Moscow, Russia:
P. G. Patskevich, Senior Researcher

Improvement of human habitat in mining regions is based on improvement of ore mining and processing technologies. The field of gold ore deposits dressing, developed by the gold mining company UGC, has such primary objectives as: increasing the recovery of valuable components in order to minimize their losses during heap leaching and factory proces sing; management of solid and liquid waste products — leached dumps, tailings, cyanide and acid waste; finding the ways to neutralize and recycle waste, up to utilization in the worked out spaces. Employees of the consortium, established on the basis of the UGC, from Russian research organizations, production units of the enterprise and a separate subdivision of the ECON Laboratory of the IPKON, successfully solved the problems associated with the implementation of an ecologically balanced cycle of comprehensive exploitation of the Urals gold deposits. Unification of the equipment of the main technological operations at all UGC factories promotes the savings in capital and operating costs, as well as additional opportunities for qualified maintenance of equipment that prolongs the period of its operation. In this case, the direction is made on modern samples that have the best technical characteristics. As a result of modernization, the enterprises achieved the improvement of sanitary working conditions. At the same time, the conditions for servicing machines and mechanisms in concentrating factories were substantially simplified, and labor productivity was increased. The modernization process concerns not only production itself, but also analytical support. In the town of Plast (the Southern Urals), a separate subdivision of the Laboratory for IPKON Ecologically Balanced Exploitation of the Mineral Resources was opened, equipped with modern analytical equipment. A great deal of attention is being paid to the replenishment of the instrument-analytical laboratory cluster located at the Tsentralnaya, Kommunarovsk, Darasun and Sovetsky mines. Increasing the accuracy and efficiency of the analysis of head and tail samples, the testing in the process and certification of finished commercial products provide the necessary adjustment of the operating condition and quality control. Results of our investigation show the perfection of ore processing technologies at concentrating factories, provided the increase of gold extraction from ores and essential improvement of working conditions based on decrease in a share of manual work and transfer of operators of the process equipment in safe and comfortable conditions for control panels of industrial installations.

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