An Analysis of Agricultural Production Efficiency of Yangtze River Economic Belt Based on a Three-Stage DEA Malmquist Model

The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is a major national strategic development area in China, and the development of the YREB will greatly promote the development of the entirety China, so research on its agricultural production efficiency is also of great significance. This paper is committed to studying the agricultural production efficiency of 11 provinces in the YREB and adopts a combination of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model and the Malmquist index to make a dynamic and static analysis on the YREB’s agricultural production efficiency from 2010 to 2019. Then, a three-stage DEA Malmquist model that eliminates the factors of random interference and management inefficiency is compared to a model without elimination. The results show that the adjusted technological efficiency changes, technological progress, and total factor productivity increased by −0.1%, 0.24%, and 0.22%, respectively. When comparing these values to the pre-adjustment values, the results indicate that the effect of environmental variables cannot be ignored when studying the agricultural production efficiency of the YREB. At the same time, the differences in the agricultural production efficiency in the YREB are reasonably explained, and feasible suggestions are put forward.

Evaluating the Downstream Development Strategy of Oil Companies: The Case of Rosneft

The relevance of this study is due to the low rate of development of the downstream sectors of Russian oil companies. Against a background of the sale of significant volumes of oil and gas raw materials, Russia lags behind world leaders in the production and consumption of petrochemical and chemical products, with their share in the gross domestic product of the country being only 1.1%. Connected to this is the issue of substantiating strategies of development for the downstream sectors of Russian oil companies, which requires detailed research. In this light, it is necessary to take into account current trends in the worldwide demand on petroleum products and also the opportunities and competitive advantages of Russian oil and gas companies in the creation and development of refineries with a consideration of modern technological, environmental, social and market criteria. The paper tests hypotheses about modernisation as a process of increasing efficiency in the development of the industry as a whole. The results of the study show that the planned pace of development in the industry by means of modernisation proves to be insufficient and requires additional investments in innovative development and new construction. The value of the research lies in the modelling of modernisation strategy options by the example of a large oil company, the estimation of results by the criteria of world average indices of technological efficiency of production and the analysis of these results by state indicators of branch development. The theoretical significance of the research lies in the possibility of using this research approach as an analogue.

Review of Studies on Joint Recovery of Macroalgae and Marine Debris by Hydrothermal Liquefaction

At the moment, macroalgae blooms in sea waters, the rotting of which causes greenhouse gas emissions and contributes to the formation of a negative ecological and economic situation in coastal zones, which has become a serious problem. Fuel production through hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of macroalgae and marine debris is a promising solution to this ecological problem. The article provides an overview of studies on producing fuel from macroalgae and an assessment of the possibility of their joint recovery with marine debris. The optimal process conditions and their technological efficiency were evaluated. The article shows the feasibility of using heterogeneous catalysis and co-solvent to increase the yield of bio-oil and improve its quality. An assessment of the possibility of joint processing of waste macroalgae and marine debris showed the inexpediency of this direction. The high degree of drift macroalgae contamination also raises the question of the appropriateness of the preliminary extraction of other valuable components for nutrition use, such as fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and their derivatives.

Experimental Determination of the Influence of the Peeling Machine Constructive and Operating Parameters on the Criteria of the Peeling Process Efficiency

Introduction. The determination of the optimal technological efficiency of the peeling process, in terms of the number of detached casings and unit costs of the process, is an important task. The purpose of the study is to give reasons for a comprehensive evaluation criterion of the technological efficiency of peeling wheat grain and choose the optimal values of the parameters of grain peeling, taking into account the energy intensity of the process. Materials and Methods. To quantify the technological efficiency of peeling wheat grain, we used the following local efficiency criteria: the relative yield of peeling by-products, the relative decrease in grain ash content, the increase in the number of cracked grains, and a comprehensive criterion of efficiency taking into account local criteria and the specific power consumption. Results. The experiments have shown that the technological feasibility of the peeling process is ensured at the percentage of the flap opening at the outlet of the machine 60‒70%. In this case, the relative yield of waste husk is 3.2‒2.8%, the relative decrease in grain ash content is 0.32‒0.20%, and the increase in the number of cracked grains does not exceed 0.85%. With increasing the degree of the flap opening at the outlet of the machine from 50 to 100%, the specific power consumption decreases from 8.7 to 3.5 kW∙h/t. Discussion and Сonclusion. To assess the technological efficiency of wheat grain peeling a generalized efficiency criterion, which includes local criteria, is proposed. It has been experimentally proved their dependence on the intensity of grain processing in the machine. The optimum combination of the flap opening degree at the outlet of the machine at 67% (productivity 0.7 t/h) and the specific power consumption of 5.8 kW∙h/t was defined. In this case, the efficiency complex criterion, taking into account the process energy intensity of, is 4.5 kg/kW∙h.

Improvement of oil and gas production infrastructure as an effective tool for maintaining basic oil and gas production

The modern world is a complex mechanism in which each process, direction, sphere of activity, despite visual differences, ultimately creates a single complex element aimed at ensuring human life. One of the key processes occurring on the planet is the extraction of hydrocarbons. The article proposes to consider a solution that will contribute to ensuring the efficiency of oil and gas production processes, will extend the life cycle of mature oil and gas production assets of the Russian Federation (hereinafter referred to as the RF) and extend their economic profitability. Economic and technological efficiency from infrastructure reengineering measures is individual for each region, and directly depends on the volume of oil, water production and the state of the ground infrastructure. The described areas of infrastructure reengineering, in aggregate, represent an effective tool for optimizing operating and capital costs, increasing the reliability of technological equipment, removing infrastructure restrictions, which will contribute to the achievement of the set task - maintaining oil production at mature assets. Keywords: facilities for oil treatment; gas compression; reservoir pressure maintenance; power supply; engineering networks; operating costs; reengineering.

Can China’s “Tax-for-Fee” Reform Improve Water Performance–Evidence from Hebei Province

Resource tax has been widely adopted in many countries. This paper evaluates the causal effect of reform of water resources tax on water resources performance in Hebei Province, China. By using the provincial panel data, we first measure the water resources performance of 21 provinces from 2008 to 2018 by considering the NDDF-ML method of undesirable output. We found that each province in China has gradually improved its water resources performance in the past 10 years, but there are great differences between regions. Then, we employ the synthetic control method, which allows us to consider the influence of unobservable time-varying factors to evaluate the policy effect. The results show that water performance index has increased significantly by 18.0%. The effect is mainly due to technological progress (17.3%) rather than technological efficiency (0.7%), which means no significant improvement in the allocation of water, and after placebo tests, our results are still robust. The DID approach shows a similar conclusion, but unobservable time-variation caused by other policies may lead to an overestimation of DID. In order to make good use of water resources, China should accelerate the reform of water resource taxes and pay more attention to the allocation of water resources.

FLAT SIEVE SEPARATORS WITH ANNULAR PNEUMATIC SEPARATION DUCT

The search for the optimal variant of the structural ar-rangement of flat-screen separators by centrifugal-air sepa-rators with annular pneumatic separation ducts is a promis-ing direction in the development of new equipment. This will significantly improve the technological performance of grain cleaning plants. It may be considered a promising direction for such research. Therefore, it is necessary to look for new options for the layout of grain cleaning ma-chines to increase their technological efficiency. Several variants of technological schemes for the operation of ex-isting flat-sieve separators with a centrifugal-air separator with an annular pneumatic separation ducts are proposed. The technological process of the modernized grain clean-ing plant based on the A1-BIS-100 plantis described. The main parameters of the gravity transporting device are de-termined; they fully ensure the operability of the modern-ized plant.

Analysis of the Long-Term Mass Balance and Efficiency of Waste Recovery in a Municipal Waste Biodrying Plant

The aim of this study was to determine the role of an installation based on biodrying of municipal waste in a Circular Economy by taking into account the quantitative and qualitative changes in its selectively collected waste stream. As a case study, the Mechanical-Biological municipal waste treatment installation in Olsztyn, Poland, was selected, which is equipped with a separate section for valorizing the selectively collected waste stream. The scope of the work included a complete mass balance of the waste treatment plant, an assessment of the technological efficiency of the municipal waste biodrying installation, and determination of the changes in the main waste from 2016 to 2020. This paper proposes an empirical method for estimating process loss during biodrying and provides many technological results. The average process loss was 23.47%, and on average, 88.9% of the waste produced by biodrying consisted of the Refuse-Derived Fuel fraction. The recovery of commercial assortments from selectively collected waste increased from 84.82% in 2016 to 89.26% in 2020. Considering the current morphology of municipal waste in this region, the maximum share of waste subjected to material and organic recycling processes in the analyzed region could be increased to around 60%, which indicates that Circular Economy targets can be achieved. This work should provide a compendium of information for countries implementing a Circular Economy.

Increase in recoverable oil reserves based on system treatments of injection wells

Background. The article considers and justifies the need to take into account the indicators that characterize the amount of balance reserves involved in the development, as well as the increase in recoverable oil reserves due to EOR, when evaluating the technological efficiency of the treatment of the alignment of the pick-up profile (RUNWAY). Aim. If the increase in recoverable reserves is significantly less than production, this will lead to a loss of oil production potential. This fact is of particular importance in the conditions of the arrangement of the old squares and the presence of a developed infrastructure on them. Materials and methods. Materials were used to assess the dynamics and degree of development of oil reserves, calculations of the increase in recoverable reserves. Results. The article presents the results of the accumulated technological efficiency of work to improve oil recovery using various technologies for leveling the intake profile (runway) and non-stationary flooding at the facilities of Subsurface user in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area – Yugra on the basis of system-targeted impact on the reservoir. The article also presents materials on the assessment of the dynamics and degree of development of oil reserves, as well as calculations of the increase in recoverable reserves. Conclusions. Calculations based on the assessment of the increase in initial and residual recoverable oil reserves from the implementation of annual EOR programs carried out in accordance with the methodology of PJSC Gazpromneft indicate that the implementation of these programs contributes to additional involvement in the active development of previously poorly drained or non-drained oil reserves.