Assessment of various scenarios for the development of mineral deposits in the region (as exemplified by the Republic of Tuva)

It is shown that Tuva has a sufficiently rich mineral and raw material diversity and the potential for their development. Nevertheless, the development of the republic is hindered by the existence of transport and infrastructure restrictions, to eliminate which, first of all, it is necessary to build a railway along the Kyzyl-Kuragino highway. On the other hand, given the border area of the territory that adjoins western Mongolia, there is a possibility of implementing various scenarios for the construction of railway tracks. The calculations performed to evaluate scenarios for the development of mineral resources of the republic using methods of intersectoral assessment shows that when implementing a pessimistic option for the development of the potential of mineral resources of Tuva (in which the construction of the railway to Tuva is frozen and only deposits of non-ferrous metals and gold are developed), the gross regional product of the republic will grow to 164 billion rubles, which will be 45% of the growth of this indicator in relation to the GRP of 2018. With the implementation of the optimistic option I, (in which it is planned to build a railway along the Kuragino-Kyzyl highway, coal deposits, non-ferrous metals, gold are being developed), the GRP of the republic will grow up to 351 billion rubles. In addition, calculations have been made for the construction of railways that would connect Tuva with Mongolia and China.

Electrochemically Enhanced Deposition of Scale from Chosen Formation Waters from the Norwegian Continental Shelf

Reservoir formation waters typically contain scaling ions which can precipitate and form mineral deposits. Such mineral deposition can be accelerated electrochemically, whereby the application of potential between two electrodes results in oxygen reduction and water electrolysis. Both processes change the local pH near the electrodes and affect the surface deposition of pH-sensitive minerals. In the context of the plugging and abandonment of wells, electrochemically enhanced deposition could offer a cost-effective alternative to the established methods that rely on setting cement plugs. In this paper, we tested the scale electro-deposition ability of six different formation waters from selected reservoirs along the Norwegian continental shelf using two experimental setups, one containing CO2 and one without CO2. As the electrochemical deposition of scaling minerals relies on local pH changes near the cathode, geochemical modelling was performed to predict oversaturation with respect to the different mineral phases at different pH values. In a CO2-free environment, the formation waters are mainly oversaturated with portlandite at pH > 12. When CO2 was introduced to the system, the formation waters were oversaturated with calcite. The presence of mineral phases was confirmed by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses of the mineral deposits obtained in the laboratory experiments. The geochemical-modelling results indicate several oversaturated Mg-bearing minerals (e.g., brucite, dolomite, aragonite) in the formation waters but these, according to XRD results, were absent in the deposits, which is likely due to the significant domination of calcium-scaling ions in the solution. The amount of deposit was found to be proportional to the concentration of calcium present in the formation waters. Formation waters with a high concentration of Ca ions and a high conductivity yielded more precipitate.

The Importance of Border Checkpoints of Goods of Inner Mongolia for the Development of Cross-Border Relations of Peoples Republic of China

The article considers the system of operating border checkpoints of a large region in the north of China - the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The author emphasizes the growing importance of the Manchuria and Erlian land checkpoints, through which not only the whole variety of goods of Russian-Chinese and Chinese-Mongolian trade passes, but also international transit is provided. The remaining checkpoints, on the contrary, acquire a narrow specialization or have local significance for border territories. The development of border checkpoints, such as Sehe, Ganzmod and Mandal, is associated exclusively with the development of mineral deposits in the south of Mongolia and their subsequent export to China. In the context of a pandemic, the countries are forced to strengthen the barrier function of borders by tightening quarantine measures, which affects directly the operation of border checkpoints. The information provided on the border points of Inner Mongolia can become the basis for analyzing China’s opportunities to develop trade cooperation across the borders of Inner Mongolia.

Irkutsk school of mining engineers is celebrating 90th anniversary

It is in 1930 that the training of mining engineers began in Eastern Siberia on the basis of the Siberian Mining Institute (now Irkutsk National Research Technical University). In 1931 the Department of Mining Arts was organized, which later was named the Department of Mineral Deposits Development. Over the years, the Department has trained more than 7000 graduates – mining engineers, who made a huge contribution in the development of the mining industry in the Irkutsk region and neighboring territories including Mongolia. The Department has trained more than a hundred mining engineers and Masters of science for Mongolia; assisted the lecturers and professors of the Mongolian Polytechnic University (now Mongolian University of Science and Technology) in organizing the educational process for training specialists for the country's mining industry. At its different formation stages the Department of Mineral Deposits Development was headed by well-known scientists – mining engineers, who created three scientific schools for the development of coal, placer and gold deposits; the obtained scientific results were marked with two State awards of the Russian Federation, dozens of doctoral and candidate dissertations were defended and about 100 patents were received. Today, the Department super- vises the training of mining engineers in open-pit and underground mining of mineral deposits, carries out a large amount of research and design work on the orders from mining enterprises, trains academic staff, develops new technologies and technical solutions in order to improve mining operations. The Department is deeply involved in the cooperation with mining enterprises, research and design organizations, as well as with universities that train mining engineers.

Recent Advancements in Metallurgical Processing of Marine Minerals

Polymetallic manganese nodules (PMN), cobalt-rich manganese crusts (CRC) and seafloor massive sulfides (SMS) have been identified as important resources of economically valuable metals and critical raw materials. The currently proposed mineral processing operations are based on metallurgical approaches applied for land resources. Thus far, significant endeavors have been carried out to describe the extraction of metals from PMN; however, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it lacks a thorough review on recent developments in processing of CRC and SMS. This paper begins with an overview of each marine mineral. It is followed by a systematic review of common methods used for extraction of metals from marine mineral deposits. In this review, we update the information published so far in peer-reviewed and technical literature, and briefly provide the future perspectives for processing of marine mineral deposits.