Shashenko A., Pashkevich M., Tertychko T.

State Higher Educational Institution «National Mining University»

Regional development on the basis of profitability growth of the enterprises (on the example of mines and mining regions)

In market economy the steady growth of competitiveness is the necessary condition of survival of each enterprise. It is assumed that the basis of well-being of the coal region is the profitability of each mine that in this case is a source of income for state and local budgets and a founder of working places. However, with rare exceptions, almost all Ukrainian state mines are unprofitable. Thus the implementation of innovational technologies for the growth of competitiveness and bringing it on the level of profitability will contribute to the sustainable development of mining regions.

During the period from 2001 to 2010 for partial compensation of the production costs $4.3 billion subsidies were transferred from the state budget. Experience has shown that the closure of the unprofitable mine is more costly for the state budget than its operation with losses, not taking into account the consequent unemployment and environmental impacts. [1] Meanwhile the existing engineering technologies offer opportunities for mine operation as a profitable autonomous power generation system [2-6] based on the remaining reserves of coal, the use of alternative sources of geothermal, solar and wind energy. This will allow establishing a cost-effective enterprise of another economic orientation on the basis of the old mine; the GIS-technologies and technologies in environmental protection sphere could provide constant monitoring of technological and biological condition of the territory thus ensuring a prompt response to any deviation from the strategic direction of its rehabilitation. Thus the economic and legal concepts of the coal industry restructuring and stimulation the development of depressed regions might be changed.

Technology that allows bringing the mine at the level of profitability involves underground, ground and air space area around the mining enterprise. The implementation of each technology is a separate business plan with a certain amount of necessary investments, payback period and the level of profitability [4-6]. Technological capabilities of solution of the post-mining problem is better to consider on the example of the mine-“fluid controller” that cannot be ever completely closed because of the need to prevent the threat of flooding of adjacent operating mines and neighboring areas. On the one hand such mine is a constant source of enormous and constantly increasing expenses, but on the other hand it is a resource for additional energy generating by using, for example, heat pump technology, development of specific heat shields for picking the subsoil heat, technology of exploitation of the gaz-and hydrothermal deposits in geological structures damaged by mining operations.

In addition within the field of closed mines there are millions of tons of opened and left coal reserves. It is a significant loss for the state’s economy. Thus, according to the experts the amount of coal in the abandoned coal mines of Luhansk region reaches 1.2 billion of tons which corresponds to the loss of $114 billion income. Reduction of these economic losses is possible using the underground gasification technologies that allow converting the remaining deposits in the heat and liquid chemicals. Both closed and operating mines are the sources of alternative energy through the use of technologies that capture the methane located in the coal and surrounding rocks. The capturing heat can be transferred to the surface where it is reasonable to locate production facilities that meet the strategic directions of the state’s development. For example the mine that operates as hydrogeological environmental regulator pumping millions of tons of water per year could function as water treatment center. While a number of countries are experiencing a shortage of drinking water and developing high energy-consuming technology for its acquisition from the sea, the water circulating in the mine could be cleaned and transformed into a business resource and a source of healthy life in the coal mining regions.

Additional resources of water and energy create the necessary conditions for the construction on the mine surface large agricultural and industrial complexes and SMEs in the nonmaterial sphere that can be autonomously heated and provided with water. Preliminary analysis showed that such agricultural complex might take the market niche of growing organic food that is becoming more in demand worldwide.Agricultural and industrial enterprises depending on the specific nature of their activity may be located not only on the surface, but also underground. Kilometers of artificially created voids can be converted into storehouses of different destination, cellars, mushroom farms. In Ukraine each year a problem of non-compliance of agricultural crops to the available storage capacity arises. With the proper organization of the processes large logistics trade center could be organized on the basis of a number of unprofitable closed mines.

Thus such measures will help to solve the problem of unemployment and social stress in the regions with unprofitable and closed mines. Implementation of innovational technologies will bring the company to enter the level of self-repayment and profitability providing the sustainable development of the region.

Literature

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2. Булат А.Ф., Чемерис И.Ф. Научно-технические основы создания шахтных когенерационных комплексов. Киев: Наукова думка. – 2006. – 175с.

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