The Global Emerging Market in Transition: Articles, Forecasts, and Studies

Problems in the Development of the Nonferrous Metal Industry in Siberia

PROBLEMS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NONFERROUS METAL INDUSTRY IN SIBERIA (with P. K. Vovk and N. F. Orel) Siberia has vast raw material resources. In addition to huge resources of timber, oil, natural gas, nonferrous metals, and other minerals, 85% of the country’s (the USSR) coal deposits, and 60% of all its water resources are concentrated here. Developing these resources is a key strategic goal of the state’s economic policy. In the 10th five-year period alone, Siberia’s industrial output is to go up 1.5-fold. Siberia’s development on such a large scale has become possible because of the country’s powerful material and technological base, which is capable of ensuring high rates of industrial growth and increased labor productivity. Areas east of the Urals contain 82% of potential water power and 85% of their technical potential. Siberia and the Far East have the country’s greatest power capacity . However, the country’s historical background is responsible for Siberia ’s imbalances in the field of developing fuel and raw-material resources, on the one hand, and processing and manufacturing industries , on the other. Given the current state of geological prospecting, Siberia has the largest areas with promising reserves of mineral wealth. Of national significance here are its resources of coal, nickel, cobalt, copper, lead, rock salt, common mica, graphite, oil, gas, and magnesite. Siberia’s resources of apatite, zinc, phosphorite, alumina. asbestos, In Problems in the Development of the Non-Ferrous Metal Industry in Siberia (Novosibirsk , USSR: Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1980), pp. 3–16. 500 the emerging market of russia gold, iron ores, antimony, mercury, and rare metals are of significance for the entire area. The existence of large-scale deposits of different minerals is an advantage in Siberia’s ore and mineral development , and is the foundation for the emergence of sizable territorial -production complexes, with the power and mining industries playing a major part. The basic trend in the siting of nonferrous metal industries is to site them even further in the country’s eastern regions, with their highly effective raw-materials and power resources. The development of the aluminum industry in Siberia is a key economic endeavor . The production of alumina and aluminum is centered mainly in Eastern Siberia (at the Bratsk, Irkutsk, and Krasnoyarsk aluminum plants, and the Achinsk alumina plant); the Sayany aluminum plant is under construction; the Novokuznetsk aluminum plant is currently operating in Western Siberia. The disproportions in the location of alumina and aluminum plants necessitates transporting alumina from the European part of the country to Siberia and the reverse delivery of finished products. According to VAMI (USSR Aluminum Research Institute) estimates , the production of aluminum in Eastern Siberia reduces the cost of electricity 4.5 times, compared with the same costs in the European part of the country, and 2 to 3 times, compared with the Urals, while the total savings in production costs per ton of aluminum , compared with the average costs for the industry, amounts to 20%. The effectiveness of producing aluminum in Siberia is evident from the falling share of capital investments and the increasing volume of aluminum production, as compared with that of the country in general. While the share of aluminum production in Siberia in the country ’s overall volume of production for 1980 increased by 7.3% as against 1970, the share of capital investments in developing aluminum production in Siberia as against those invested throughout the country will decrease by 10%. Aluminum plants in Siberia are working with delivered raw materials and, to an extent, with Achinsk alumina (at the Krasnoyarsk aluminum plant). The draft plan for 1975–1980 foresees completion of construction at the Achinsk alumina combine, and when full opera- nonferrous metal industry in siberia 501 tion begins, it will provide nearly one-third of the needs of aluminum plants. In the last five-year-plan period, the first unit of the Kiya-Shaltyrsky mine for the strip production of nepheline was put into operation in the Kemerovo region. Its capacities will fully provide the Achinsk alumina combine with raw material. Three Siberian aluminum plants, the country’s latest—Bratsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk—are equipped with state-of-the-art technology. The Bratsk and Krasnoyark aluminum plants, now in a stage of initial development, are the world’s largest. Although the region under consideration has only two plants in full operation...