UGK Gold Mining Company, Chelyabinsk, Russia:

K. I. Strukov, Founder & President, Candidate of Engineering Sciences
V. V. Fedoseev, Chief Geologist

UGK JSC, Plast, Russia:

R. V. Berger, Managing Director

Institute of Integrated Mineral Mining–IPKON, Moscow, Russia:
M. V. Rylnikova, Head of Department, Professor, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, rylnikova@mail.ru

As of today mineral deposits developed by Uzhuralzoloto Group of Companies (UGK) mostly feature relatively moderate volume of balance reserves retained and, accordingly, limited operating life, low and highly variable gold content of ore, and often long and a few century-long period of extraction being now at the final stage when 76–80 % of profitable cutoff have already been mined extracted. A characteristic of such deposits is complicated ground conditions, as well as difficult geotechnical and geomechanical conditions. Considering the above mentioned complicating factors, UGK management can only reach economic efficiency and continue to be at the top in gold production by implementing the long-term strategy of the sustained technological development pursuing strategic goals. The top priorities of the strategy are enhancement of subsoil use efficiency within the mine fields that are or to be under development, minimization of metal loss in the course of ore mining and processing at the permanent increase in the production rate and volume, creation of conditions for integrated mechanization and automation of basic process flows, promotion of investment into technical upgrading of mining and processing equipment, maintenance of resource-saving and energy efficiency of mining, provision of the environmentally sound subsoil development and mining safety, as well as generation and actualization of backup towards mining productivity enhancement in the future. The result of the successful implementation of resource-reproducing and economically sound geotechnologies by Uzhuralzoloto Group of Companies, at high indexes of mineral extraction completion and product quality, is the persistent annual growth of gold production output.
The study has been supported by the Russian Science Foundation, Grant No. 14-37-00050-P.

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