Tsarevo-Alexandrovsky (Au) mine, Miass urban district, Chelyabinsk region, Southern Urals, Russia

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Direct sabotage by energy officials who did not want to fulfill their duties led in September 2017 to the shutdown of a large gold mine in the Trans-Baikal Territory - JSC Aleksandrovsky Mine, which in 2016 produced 1356 kg of gold. The main reason for the shutdown is the supply of low-quality electricity by the Chitaenergosbyt joint-stock company, with which the gold miners entered into an agreement back in 2013 (No. 050641), the subject of which is the sale of electrical energy of proper quality.

From that time on, the misadventures of the miners began, who repeatedly turned to power engineers with notifications that, in violation of the terms of the contract, low-quality energy was supplied that did not comply with GOST 32144-2013, which led to long shutdowns of the gold extraction plant, designed for year-round operation, and rapid wear and failure of high-tech and expensive equipment. At the same time, today the Aleksandrovsky mine cannot reach the planned production targets, mainly due to the supply of low-quality energy by the network organization (Chitaenergo JSC).

It should be noted that the requirements for the reliability of power supply and the quality of electrical energy are established in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation. The existence of grounds and the extent of liability of electric power industry entities to consumers for inaction leading to adverse consequences are determined in accordance with the civil legislation of the Russian Federation and the legislation on the electric power industry. In order to prove the receipt of low-quality energy, JSC Rudnik Aleksandrovsky contacted a specialized organization to measure the parameters of the supplied energy. Thus, the power quality testing laboratory of JSC Irmet (Irkutsk) measured power quality indicators. The main conclusion of expert opinions on the inadequate quality of electrical energy is that the electrical energy received by the mine does not comply with GOST; The culprit for supplying low-quality energy is the energy supply organization.

Between 2014 and August 2017, there were 1,137 gold plant shutdowns due to poor quality energy. The costs of gold miners to restore damaged equipment exceeded 40 million rubles. The volume of lost revenue exceeded 250 million rubles. The situation with regard to the increase in the number of plant shutdowns due to the supply of low-quality energy is worsening every year, which is confirmed by the statistics below on shutdowns and downtime of the gold extraction plant's technological process.

Experts have a good idea of ​​what unexpected shutdowns of a gold recovery plant lead to: in addition to equipment breakdowns, there is a decrease in the quality of metal extraction, difficulties in subsequent startup, etc.

JSC Rudnik Aleksandrovsky has repeatedly notified JSC Chitaenergosbyt that each shutdown could be the last, and the work of the factory will be stopped for a period of 6 months or more. Despite the notifications, Chitaenergosbyt JSC was inactive. And the expected disaster happened: an emergency shutdown occurred at the gold recovery plant. The shutdown was caused by a malfunction (failure) of the high-voltage frequency drive of the INGEDRIVE MPSI mill. The company managed to find and purchase scarce equipment for a lot of money, but the mine was idle for quite a long time.

The problem could well have been solved by power engineers. The managers of JSC "Rudnik Aleksandrovsky" have repeatedly proposed holding a working meeting with specialists from "Chitaenergo" and "Chitaenergosbyt" to discuss the possibility of installing STATCOM equipment at the 35/6 kV substation "Fabriki", the preliminary cost of which is 20-25 million rubles, but officials ignored these offers.

Today, the solution to install STATCOM on the 6 kV buses of the Fabrika substation seems to be the most optimal, which can be implemented in the shortest possible time. Examples of the successful implementation of such installations in the Russian Federation are static reactive power generators (SRPG) RU-Drive, installed at the facilities of JSC Karelsky Okatysh, JSC Kovdorsky Mining and Processing Plant and the installation of SRPG RU-Drive SVG 6.7 MVAr, 27.5 kV, at the station "Zarinskaya" of the West Siberian Railway of JSC Russian Railways.

The main reason for the supply of low-quality electricity to the Aleksandrovsky mine and other consumers in the Trans-Baikal Territory was the significant asymmetry and non-sinusoidality of the electric current caused by a sharp increase in freight traffic along the Trans-Baikal Railway (supply of huge amounts of resources to China). Back in March 2016, an “Action Plan for Improving the Reliability of Power Supply to Trans-Baikal Railway Facilities” was developed and agreed upon with PJSC Federal Grid Company of the Unified Energy System (PJSC FGC UES) and the system operator of the Unified Energy System of Russia (SO UES), however this plan remained on paper... The direct appeal of the regional governor to the president of Russian Railways OJSC O. Belozerov at the beginning of 2017 did not help solve the problem. Officials in Moscow brush aside the problems of such remote gold miners in Transbaikalia, declaring that economic entities themselves must solve all their problems locally.

It’s Saturday, winter continues, although it’s already the second half of March. Over the past week, snow has piled up to the fullest extent.

A dog whines at the door, asking to go for a walk. - Well, let's go, let's go! I'll get dressed now. Shouldn't we take a walk into the forest, recharge our batteries, breathe oxygen? I’ll take a camera with me, maybe I’ll shoot something interesting. As for the route of the walk - well, I’ll improvise here, I’ll take a GPS just in case.

We headed west - towards the border of Europe and Asia. The end result was a great walk through the taiga, not without crawling through some pretty deep virgin soil.

But first things first.

From the bypass highway we went west up the logging road.

We reached the saddle of the ridge.

From here the trails diverge in four directions: to the south - to the Hanging Stone rocks, to the west - to the Alexander chromite mine, to the north - to Mount Hanging Stone and the ski slope, to the east - to the city - we climbed along it. After hesitating a little, we headed towards the mine, especially since I had not been there yet, but had only skied a little higher.

The quarry has long been flooded, but rock walls up to 10 m high and the mines preserved nearby are reminders of past developments. Ore mining was carried out at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. by expedition for the factories of the Verkh-Isetsky mountain district.

The mobile washing unit MPU-2 rises on the mountainside. It’s just not known whether developments are underway here, and if so, then what.

Having followed the snowmobile trail to the west for 500 meters, we found ourselves at the source of the river. Black Shishim. People call these places Leshachy Logs. Here, near the town of Solyonaya, there is an ore deposit (there are only six similar ones in the Urals and in the country) of a wonderful ornamental stone rhodonite (orlets), which in the 19th century. was considered a symbol of Russia. In the early 90s. geologists carried out repeated exploration of this ore occurrence. The extracted cores confirmed the presence of this unique mineral in the depths.

The area of ​​the chromite mine and Leshachiye Lairs is of great interest to lovers of mineralogy. Here, in addition to chromite and rhodonite, there are iron ore, pyrite, rhodochrome, scheelite, uvarovite, hairy bissolite, serpentine, kemmererite, kochubeite, pushkinite, osmic iridium, gold...

In the article by Mr. Novokreshchenykh: “Description of the rocks of the dacha of the Verkh-Neivinsky plant and the list of minerals found in it” (printed in the 2nd book of the 1st volume of the Notes of the Ural Society of Natural History Lovers, 1874) minerals are indicated that are found not only in placers , but also in hard rocks of the country house. By the way, it is clear from this article that quite rare minerals are found here: rhodochrome, kemmerite, kochubeite, uvarovite, picrosmine, orlets or rhodonite; news of their presence in the Verkh-Neivinskaya dacha appears for the first time in the press in an article by Mr. Novokreschenykh. It is interesting to know whether uvarovite is found in crystals or not crystalline? Until now, the only deposit in the world of well-crystallized uvarovite was considered to be Mount Sarannaya, in the dacha of the Bisertsky, or Besertsky, plant of Count Shuvalov (before that owned by Princess Butero-Radali), but even there it had long been worked out, and the ores were distributed to the offices of different countries. Regarding rhodonite, or orlets, the city of Novokreshchenykh says that it is located near the Aleksandrovsky chromium-iron ore mine, on the road from the Verkh-Neyvinsky plant to Bilimbaevsky, in Leshachy Logs, and constitutes a good (probably it should be understood: quite extensive) deposit; This very beautiful pink stone was still known, not only in the Urals, but also in Russia, only one deposit - in the dacha of the Nizhne-Isetsky state plant, 20 versts southeast of Yekaterinburg, near the village. Sedelnikova, from where it is extracted for processing at the Imperial Lapidary Factory in Yekaterinburg. - At the above-mentioned Aleksandrovsky chrome mine in the town of Novokreshchenykh he also indicates deposits of picrosmine, rhodochrome, kemmerite, kochubeite and uvarovite. Of the rocks he mentions granite, syenite, amphibolite, diorite, chlorite and talc schists, pot stone, oligoclase porphyry, limestones, solid quartz and solid garnet.

Trees create bizarre images, painting extraordinary pictures.

The snowmobile tracks went sharply to the north. I didn’t really know where they led. I looked at the GPS - we had gone quite far, we had to return. About two hundred meters to the south of us there should have been a clearing crossing Leshachy Logs. The only obstacle to getting to it was deep snow, although in some places you could see hollows from littered paths. Having looked at something more or less recognizable, we moved forward. The dog started to gallop forward, but then decided to follow me.

Finally we reached the clearing. We had to ram through snowdrifts for about three hundred meters. Apparently there wasn't much walking here this winter. The path went uphill. My friend began to lag behind, and I had to stop more and more often to free his paws from the stuck snow.

We went up to the quarterly clearing leading to the Hanging Stone rocks. We turned sharply north, another slight climb, and we were at the top of the rocks.

Near Novouralsk there are two Hanging Stones. On topographic maps this is how the peak is marked with an absolute height of 545 m (on its eastern slope there is a ski slope, which is very clearly visible from the southern region of Novouralsk). But most townspeople refer to the Hanging Stone as rocks located 2 km south of this mountain. Having a negative slope, the rocks seem to hang over the forest. Hence their name, which extended to the nearest peak.

We returned to the clearing. It goes down steeply.

From here you can see a thin white thread of a trail going up to Mount Hanging Stone. Below us was waiting for the same intersection from which we left for the mine.

Having descended, I first assessed the state of power of my companion. It seemed like there was still enough gunpowder. We crawled up the mountain. It’s already more difficult here - no snowmobile tracks, no trail.

On the slope, between the trees, small rocky outcrops appeared. It’s interesting, of course, but... the snow is deep.

We are higher, for that ridge.

And here we are at the highest point. GPS showed an altitude of 549 meters. I cleared the snow from the cobblestones and leaned against it; a couple of minutes later the dog ran up to me and lay down on my lap. We rested for about ten minutes. I looked at the navigator, there were three hundred meters to the ski slope, I had to be patient.

Along the way, not far from the top, we saw the remains of some kind of wooden structure.

Finally, a distinct path appeared; in the distance, behind the trees, the outlines of a ski lift could be seen. Walking became easier and more fun.

We went skiing. Near the path, in the place where we emerged from the forest, there is a tree with a sign “920 m Leshachy Loga 04.11.2005 N.A.V.”

But these rolling pins are located on the ski slope.

We returned home alive and well. Well done doggie! I received an excellent portion of porridge with meat and an unlimited amount of water.