1.Development of technical regulations
That is the most intensive mode to turn business into a new system of technical regulation, which meets requirements of FL. The system must be actively used to withstand local bureaucracy and strengthen its competitiveness before Russia will enter WTO and to develop other globalization processes. However domestic business has to master a new role to design technical regulations, national standards and companies’ internal standards being in the optimal level between compulsory and voluntary requirements to goods and services. It maybe effectively fulfilled in the self-regulation conditions, when business itself is entitled to control execution of federal requirements and technical regulations. Effective lever hereof is Federal Law “On self-regulated organizations” have been considered by the State Duma in the first reading on 15/10/2003.
To perform statements of a new system of technical regulation UMMC takes an active part in the work of a project group on technical regulation of Committee of Chamber of Industry and Commerce of RF on metallurgy and is engaged with developing particular technical regulation “Hazard wastes treatment of mining & metallurgical productions”. There has been established a concept and time-schedule of the project. We are planning to start working out technical regulations in the industrial and ecological safety means to facilitate:
- to do steps in the direction of de-bureaucracy between mining & metallurgical companies and state regulating bodies squeezing a data-base of relevant documents, namely turn several regulating acts into one;
- to apply ecological duties for environmental purposes and share responsibilities of the government and the company on the regulating basis;
- to put environmental management of the company on the international standards ( in particular using an experience of EU);
- to invent advanced approaches to standardization and compliance appraisal (accreditation, certification, tests, etc) in respect of the company’s goals in the market conditions;
- to create risk methodology at the working places to secure safe technological processes and build profitable relations with privies (investors, creditors, insurance companies, partners, government);
- to assimilate basic principles used by economic subjects of international level to secure competitiveness (warning principles, life cycle, systematization, etc.);
- to enlarge capitalization of the own company in intangible assets putting its activity on widely applied in the international market interfaces, formats and standards.
In addition significant synergetic effect is anticipated from combination of technical regulations and national standards. The latter serves evidential base of regulations under the FL statements.
Thus cooperation in the development of technical regulations and national standards may result in prosperous social and economic merits for both parties.
2. Organizational measures
The company has diverse activity in safety control. However this variety can be specified as development of environmental business, optimization of technological processes and utilization of existing technologies (technological optimization), as well as application of international systems of safety control in labor and environment (integrated management systems).
2.1. Environmental business development
Legal regulations for ecological entrepreneurship are stated in the Civil Code of RF, in federal laws “On environmental protection”, “On industrial safety of hazardous manufactures”, “On uncommercial entities” and other federal laws. This branch of entrepreneurship covers matters of ecological education, information technologies, utilization of new sophisticated technologies, application of intellectual property (patents, know-how).
In particular UMMC views largely regulation of deleterious industrial impact on environment, namely estimation of permissible limits of emissions, sewages, wastes and their storage, environmental effect. However the more advanced information and analytic application of such a work the more is demand for such services.
Currently the most essential is handling of wastes, their storage, transportation, distribution, sterilization and utilization. Federal Law “On industrial and consumable wastes” has become a guide in the modern control system on wastes handling, although further elaboration of technical regulations is dragged out. Within this site an offer to develop technical regulations on wastes utilization is acting. We are waiting for your concern and your proposals. We have done a lot in this direction, but accomplish this job we need extra efforts, new ideas and approaches. We are aware that variety of wastes and their contents is getting an obstacle in this respect. We attach below the table with the most significant wastes.
Table. Industrial wastes of UMMC (2004)
| |
| №п/п |
Waste |
Content, mass% |
Hazard class |
| 1 |
Metallurgical slag, ash, dust (smelter, maintenance shop, casting station, non-ferrous casting) Slag from non-ferrous casting |
Cu - 0,6 - 0,7;
Fe - 36 - 37;
Zn - 3,5 - 5,0;
Al - 2,0 - 2,8 |
4 |
| 2 |
Blast-furnace slag |
FeSO4 - 27;
CaO - 19;
SiO2 - 12%;
MgO - 2 |
4 |
| 3 |
Metallurgical slag, ash, dust (smelter, maintenance shop, casting station, ferrous casting) Slag from electric furnaces |
Cu - 3,7;
Fe - 4,4;
Mg - 3,7;
Ca - 3,3;
Zn - 0,37 |
4 |
| 4 |
Slime and dust bearing copper and its compounds |
Cu - 58,00;
Pb - 4,00;
As - 0,25;
Sn - 0,3;
Zn - 6,1;
S - 4,1 |
3 |
| 5 |
Slag from non-ferrous smelting (copper-refining) |
Cu - 60,0;
Pb - 1,22;
Sb - 0,30;
Ni - 0,65;
Si - 6,09 |
3 |
| 6 |
Slag from open-hearth furnaces |
Fe2O3 - 9;
FeO - 15;
CaO - 34;
SiO2 - 20;
Al2O3 - 3;
MgO - 13;
MnO - 6 |
4 |
| 7 |
Slag from steelworks |
Cu - 0,16;
Fe - 5,08;
Ca - 9,80;
Mg - 1,80;
Mn - 13,9;
Si - 12,9 |
4 |
| 8 |
Cupola slag |
Pb - 0,08;
Fe - 5,3;
Ca - 11,6;
Ti - 0,56;
Mn - 1,5;
Si - 26,2;
V - 0,09 |
4 |
| 9 |
Non-ferrous slag (aluminum bearing) |
Al - 34,3;
Cu - 3,1;
Pb - 1,6;
Zn - 2,0;
Mn - 0,2;
Si - 3,6 |
3 |
| 10 |
Inorganic slimes (copper-bearing wastes) |
Cu - 11,39;
Pb - 90;
Ni - 8,51;
As - 6,52;
S - 12,10 |
3 |
| 11 |
Inorganic slimes (nickel-bearing wastes) |
Cu - 0,18;
Zn - 1,52;
Ni - 14,75;
As - 0,03;
Ca - 14,00;
Sb - 0,43;
S - 11,20 |
3 |
| 12 |
Tailings slime after sewage neutralization |
Cu - 2,20;
Zn - 5,00;
Pb - 10,00;
Ni - 0,82;
As - 3,70 ;
Sn - 0,80;
Sb - 6,20 |
3 |
| 13 |
Tailings slime after sewage neutralization |
Pb - 0,12;
Cu - 0,51;
Ni - 0,23;
As - 0,07;
Zn - 1,26 |
4 |
| 14 |
Tailings and slimes of non-ferrous enrichment |
Cu - 0,36;
Zn - 0,18;
Ti - 0,29;
Fe - 11,60;
S - 4.73;
Si - 19,30 |
3 |
| 15 |
Scaling from metallurgical processes |
Сu - 2,74;
Al - 9,01;
Mg - 1,43;
Ti - 0,43;
Si - 23,4 |
4 |
| 16 |
Refractory brickbats of combustion heaters |
CaO - 20-25;
MgO - 3-4;
SiO2 - 40-5;
Al2O3 - 20-25;
FeO - 3-4 |
4 |
| 17 |
Combined waste oil |
Oil products - 60 |
3 |
| 18 |
Waste sulfuric acid including used in accumulators |
Н2SO до 23,5 |
3 |
| 19 |
Lead- and its compounds- bearing slime and dust |
Pb - 70,00;
Sb - 0,90;
S - 5,00;
Cl - 6,80 |
2 |
| 20 |
Slime and dust with content of non-ferrous and heavy metals compounds |
Cu - 0,08;
Zn - 4,20;
Pb - 0,95;
Al - 21,60;
Si - 13,6 |
3 |
| 21 |
Waste catalyst with vanadium content |
V - 4,5 |
3 |
| 22 |
Phosphogypsum |
Ca - 22,7;
SO4 - 50,0;
P2O5 - 2,2 |
4 |
| 23 |
Mercury lamps, fluorescent mercury tubes used and rejected |
Glass – 92
Metal -2 including mercury – 0.048
|
1 |
Above-going list of wastes is typical for ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy: slag, dust, slime, enrichment tailings, and wastes of chemical and maintaining productions. Ecologic danger of these wastes is determined taking into account variety of factors and presence of toxic elements – lead, cadmium, zinc, cobalt, fluorine, etc. Even land to be left for wastes distribution is rude intervention into the ecosystem. In the same time the amount of wastes is being accumulating largely due to the exhaustion of mineral resources. Besides that complicated industrial structures as hydro technical facilities for tailings are of high technogenic risks in respect of accidents and catastrophes.
In concern of wastes handling it is very important to:
- choose an area for wastes placing;
- apply wastes as raw materials;
- recycle wastes reducing their harm and/or extract useful components;
- remove toxic elements in the high-temperature devices (for instance in cement and metallurgical furnaces);
- strengthen safeness of hydro technical structures;
- keep landing of waste areas
There are examples of designed, but not widely applied new technological ideas to solve such problems. Geoinformation systems (GIS) including advanced methods of data intellectual analysis for waste area determination are being intensively used. The world starts actively developing liquid-phase reduction, the most popular of which are ROMELT (Russia 1979), Hismelt (Germany, 1984), DIOS (Japan, 1988), AusIron (Australia, 1994). These processes are likely to be used while recycling non-ferrous and ferrous wastes with extraction of mineral components. The foregoing list is not accomplished.
As safety requirements have been intensified lately, UMMC pays attention on emissions and sewage. The more exhausted environmental potential is the more vital these problems are. The whole world needs technological and organizational decisions while engineering and operating. Initially this regards reduction of sulfur oxides, nitrogen, carbon emissions as well as toxic sewage to the underground and surface water. Usually realization of this program covers all aspects of ecological business from personnel training to new technologies and procedures application.
2.2. Technological optimization
Within this direction of activity particular proposals to decrease cost per unit of materials, raw materials and power and respectively reduce wastes, emissions and sewages up-grading flow-sheets, technological procedures, instrumentation schemes are being discussed. We are oriented on the international standards while turning complicated technological systems to reliable and safe. We are familiar with SADT (Structure Analysis and Design Technique), standards CASE (Computer Aided System Engineering), IDEF (Integration Definition for Function Modeling) and CALS (Continuous Acquisition and Life Cycle Support). Jointly with ABC technique (Actively Based Costing) these standards help to determine a cost of each unit in the complex system. Data-bases are programmed in SQL language. Unfortunately domestic market is not still well adapted to the world IT level that affects competitiveness of Russian business. Therefore UMMC is focused on application of techniques thereof within Russian mining and metallurgical companies.
Advanced thermodynamic and kinetic methods, systematic analysis, physic and math’s modeling of sophisticated technological systems support largely economic activity of the Company. All these techniques are being developing and have become an eternal resource of excellence.
2.3. Integration of management systems
Nowadays there is a tendency in the international level to solve problems of reliability, safety and quality in whole by means of acting standards of ISO 9000 (quality system control), ISO 14000 (environmental management systems) and OHSAS 18000 (labor protection and safety control). Such an integrated control systems are applied now in the UMMC. We have approved quality control system ISO 9001 and are engaged with arrangement of environmental management under ISO 14001. Emerge of EMAS (European system of Environmental Management and Audit) and ISO 14000 was caused by strong demand from the market and customers in the deteriorated ecologic conditions.
It is vital to say that tendency to integration is apparent while development of management systems on the base of abovementioned ITs (Standards SADT, CALS, CASE etc.). These standards are oriented on the technique of product life cycle, namely interface of all steps of the cycle. The same tendency is seen in the Federal Law “On technical regulation”. Currently Russian firms are used to breaching requirements of this technique; they ignore integration of research, engineering, storage, transportation and utilization. Their policy regarding industrial wastes is far from being ideal too.
Thus, the global market is intended to heighten competitiveness by forming integrated systems of quality, safety and reliability control. Therefore particular proposals in this concern must be very prosperous.
3. Risk-Management
Risk management encompasses following measures: risk assessment, risk mitigation, risk evaluation and further risk reduction and its elimination. Risk management gradually covers various spheres of economic activity. There was appeared a new science – riskology (theory of risk) showing great interest to risk assessment in human being life. There is an equation R = Уpi (Yi + Zi + Wi),
where R-risk, pi – likelihood of adverse event, Yi – impact, Zi – value of affected items; Wi – loss of profit.
Domestic and global success in risk assessment and elimination is being enlarged lately to turn risk-management into the strong lever of corporate management. It is impossible to build relations with huge investors, credit and insurance institutes and other interested parties (stake-holders) without advanced risk assessment approaches.
In Russia originally risk problem was raised in the Federal Law “On technical regulation”, but a huge amount of work must be carried out in coming future.
UMMC pays a great attention on risk matters, and all offers and ideas in this concern will be considered in respect of specific hazardous mining and metallurgical branches.
4. International relations
Industrial and ecologic safety stipulates international level of support, namely regulations and standards, which are still not adapted to Russian economical situation. UMMC management realizes that safety arrangement within enterprises must be based on world experience.
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