Volume 10, Number 3 (April 2023):4567-4573, doi:10.15243/jdmlm.2023.103.4567 ISSN: 2339-076X (p); 2502-2458 (e), www.jdmlm.ub.ac.id
Open Access 4567 Review
Environmental and monopolistic issues in industrial minerals mining
A.K. Kirsanov1*, G.S. Kurchin1, N.A. Shkaruba1, N.V. Nikolaeva1, R.Z. Nafikov1, S.S. Kostilev2, U.R. Teshaev3
1 Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation
2 Joint Stock Company «Norilsktransgaz», Norilsk, Russian Federation
3 Tajik Technical University named after academician M.S. Osimi, Dushanbe, Republic of Tajikistan
*corresponding author: [email protected]
Abstract Article history:
Received 14 October 2022 Accepted 4 February 2023 Published 1 April 2023
The paper discusses the environmental impact of industrial minerals mining.
Research shows that interest in mining of industrial minerals increases year by year, and their demand and consumption will steadily grow. The market conditions are favorable for developing new fields. Both opencast and underground mined minerals are most popular these days. The industrial minerals market analysis indicates its dynamics, but the high monopoly degree of mining of certain minerals causes some restrictions on free competition in subsoil use. At the same time, environmental issues raised at the level of world power governments are not reflected in legislative documents. We raise the possibility of partial transition from opencast mining to underground one-as an alternative that carries environmental improvement of a mining area.
Keywords:
environment industrial minerals opencast mining underground mining
To cite this article: Kirsanov, A.K., Kurchin, G.S., Shkaruba, N.A., Nikolaeva, N.V., Nafikov, R.Z., Kostilev, S.S. and Teshaev, U.R. 2023. Environmental and monopolistic issues in industrial minerals mining. Journal of Degraded and Mining Lands Management 10(3):4567-4573, doi:10.15243/jdmlm.2023.103.4567.
Introduction
Mineral resources are the basis for economic growth and independence of any state (Pedro et al., 2017). In a stable economic environment that ensures the normal operation of all industries in the country, the consumption of industrial minerals, as a rule, has a steady progress. According to Reichl and Schatz (2020), more than half of the raw materials are produced currently in the Asia region, followed by North America, Europe, Oceania, Latin America and Africa (Table 1). At the same time, the total mine output almost doubled from 1984 to 2018, but the percentage of production by regions remains almost unchanged.
Figure 1a shows the dynamics of mining development (mineral fuel; iron and ferro-alloys; non- ferrous metals; precious metals; construction materials (industrial minerals) since 1984 (Reichl and Schatz, 2020). The growth rate for the 34 years was 89.49%.
More than half of the solid minerals are mined from
explosive energy, while the overall explosive consumption is estimated at more than 15 million tons per year, and is very likely to increase (Sosnin et al., 2017). The percentage of production by regions for 2018 is shown in Figure 1b.
The most important industrial minerals for construction are cellar stone, sand, gravel, limestone, gypsum, anhydrite, etc. Without these minerals, no construction site is complete, whether it is roads, houses, tunnels or just repairs in an apartment. At the same time, according to the industrial minerals market analysis, interest in industrial minerals increases year by year, their demand and consumption will steadily grow. The market conditions are favorable for developing new fields. Gypsum, anhydrite and limestone both opencast and underground mined are most popular these days (Kurchin et al., 2013a; Miatto et al., 2017). It is also worth noting that minerals are mostly opencast mined, which entails quite a few technological and environmental problems (Fedorko, 1998; Chang and Koetter, 2004; Hashimoto et al.,
Open Access 4568 2006; Jarockij, 2007; Krjukov et al., 2011; Kurchin et
al., 2013b; Martin, 2017; Priester et al., 2019). At the same time, the process of land-retirement on the surface of opencast terrace is still the only effective constraint. This method of reducing pollution of the region can hardly be called effective (Jarockij, 2007).
Opencast mining has the most negative impact on the environmental situation in the mining area. As a result of human impact on the environment in the opencast operation area, there is clear deterioration of the environmental conditions for human existence. For example, there is pollution of air, soil, bed-silt, natural water, biota and abiota of the Earth. Experimental work has established that the major impact of opencast
mining of widespread mineral deposits is the direct destruction of natural ecosystems in local areas within the mining allotment. Outside the mining allotment, the major impact is caused by dust and emissions of pollutants from explosions of industrial explosives, engines of road-building machinery and vehicles within the boundaries of sanitary protection working zones. The risk of contamination and changes in the chemical composition of groundwater underlying the productive layer within the area of mining reserves and the area of runoff to local discharge facilities was identified (Tazhetdinova, 2012). However, at present it is not possible to abandon the use of industrial minerals opencast mining.
Table 1. Total minerals production by continents in 2018 (not including bauxite) (Reichl and Schatz, 2020).
Continents Total production in 2018, metric tons
Percentage of total production, %
Percentage increase since 1984, %
Africa 977,370,496 5.53 98.94
Asia 10,305,045,311 58.27 184.57
Europe 1,417,880,373 8.02 -39.50
Latin America 1,108,386,027 6.27 96.90
North America 2,665,344,318 15.07 29.40
Oceania 1,211,367,802 6.85 376.90
Total 17,685,394,327 100.00 89.49
(a) (b)
Figure 1. Total mining production in 1984-2018 (a), total production by continents in 2018 (b) (Reichl and Schatz, 2020).
Due to the monopolization of the market of industrial minerals
Currently, there are about 165 countries in the world where mining operations are carried out. Most of them have industrial mineral deposits with significant reserves. The development of these mineral resources is one of the priorities of the mining industry, since
industrial minerals are widely used in construction, mining and metallurgy: as raw materials for producing binders and additives in various cements, for producing high-burnt, mould and medical gypsum, sulfuric acid, ammonium sulfate, paper and for soil gypsum. As for the situation regarding the global industrial minerals market, since 1984, the production performance has increased by 76.3% (Figure 2a), but
Open Access 4569 at the same time, almost half of all raw materials
produced (48.9%) are accounted for by 5 leading countries: China, the United States, India, Turkey and the Russian Federation (Figure 2). As world experience shows, the mechanism of competition does not function in monopolized markets. New entry with a strong, dominant position raises the concentration level in the industry, monopolizes it and, as a result, reduces the quality of industry performance as a whole
(Viscusi et al., 2005; Brown, 2018). For detailed market consolidation, the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) is used. The index was named after economists Orris Herfindahl and Albert Hirschmann. The lower the Herfindahl-Hirschmann index takes, the stronger the competition in the market, the lower the concentration and the weaker the market power of firms, and vice versa-the higher the value, the greater the monopolization.
(a) (b)
Figure 2. Total industrial minerals production in 1984-2018 (a), total industrial minerals production by leading countries and their value in million USD in 2018 (b).
The concentration of producer countries on the Herfindahl-Hirschmann index in 2018 is shown in Figure 3. For the correct reading of this index, in this example, three types of market are identified, depending on the indicator value:
Type 1 – Highly concentrated (markets with a high level of monopolization) – HHI from 1800 to 10000.
Type 2 – Medium-concentrated (markets with a strong level of monopolization) – HHI from 1000 to 1800.
Type 3 – Weakly concentrated (markets with a low level of monopolization) – HHI up to 1000.
In Europe, the threshold for medium- concentrated markets is 2000. We usually comment on a high concentration in the industry, if the market is divided by several large producers with a high market share. A company that is a leader in the industry or a company that organizes the market may have significant market power.
Figure 3. Concentration of producer countries, Herfindahl-Hirschman Indices in 2018 (Reichl and Schatz, 2020).
400 500 600 700 800 900
1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 2017
Million metr. tons
Year
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000
0 50 100 150 200
Million USD
Million metr. tons
Million metr. Tons Million USD
Open Access 4570 On the other hand, new entry may be the result of a
merger of several companies united by a common strategy and goal, such as market monopolization, reduction of marginal costs, and expansion of a product line. Thus, from Figure 3, the following can be identified-industrial minerals across their entire range are globally divided into all 3 types of monopolization, namely:
The highly concentrated market includes: Asbestos (4299), Boron (3620), Diamonds (Gem) (2171), Diamonds (Ind) (2025), Diatomite (2297),
Fluorspar (3515), Graphite (3868), Magnesite (4505), Perlite (2807), Phosphates (2063), Zircon (2208).
The medium-concentrated market includes: Baryte (1832), Bentonite (1495), Feldspar (1450), Potash (1771), Talc (1309), Vermiculite (1990).
The weakly concentrated market includes: Gypsum and Anhydrite (713), Kaolin (909), Salt (873), Sulphur (783).
Figure 4 shows the industrial minerals production indicators for 5 years (from 2014 to 2018).
Figure 4. The industrial minerals production indicators in the period from 2014 to 2018.
Thus follows, the monopoly degree of industrial minerals mining is mostly quite high, which causes some restrictions (barriers) on free competition in subsoil use. Natural scarcity can be such a barrier to potential competitors' entry into the industrial minerals market. Despite the large amount of reserves, resources, exploration and development of new fields require large initial investments, and that increases the risks of investment. There are also administrative restrictions associated with obtaining licenses for the development of a particular field; it takes several years to issue permits. In addition, the lack of a viable mechanism for competitive obtaining of licenses affects (Dolgih, 2009). The work of Trubeckoj et al.
(2011) shows that in addition to economic viability, it is also important to take into account the environmental safety of the process chain of minerals mining and processing, i.e. non-separable solving of socio-economic and environmental problems.
However, it should be remembered that economic development in isolation from ecology leads to the transformation of the Earth into a desert, and the primacy of ecology without economic development perpetuates poverty and injustice (Trubeckoj et al., 2003). For mining industrial minerals a compromise
solution may be to divide minerals based on their mining by low impact technology and by making a underground mining method a prevailing one. When making a decision on the development of a particular mineral deposit, new technologies and opportunities that meet the geoenvironmental requirements in the region and the area of mining operations should be taken into account.
Discussion
The main consumers of industrial minerals are the construction industry, the construction materials industry, the road industry, the railway track facilities, the housing and public services, the oil and gas industry. In addition, the construction materials industry products are used in automotive and transport engineering, agriculture, furniture production and for the needs of the population (Miatto et al., 2017).
Developed competition is an essential feature of a strong and free enterprise system. Construction materials can be available, constructable and energy- efficient only in a competitive environment. At the same time, the lack of competition constrains the
-30.00 -20.00 -10.00 0.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Change 2014/2018, %
Million metric tons
Commodity
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Change 14/18 in %
Open Access 4571 development of the construction materials industry,
which tends to monopolize the markets of individual industrial minerals. Table 2 shows the share of production and the monopolization index (HHI) for each type of industrial mineral by the leading countries in 2018. In reviewing the data presented, you can notice that the monopoly degree of certain minerals mining reaches 50 percent or more (Asbestos, Boron, Fluorspar, Graphite, Magnesite), on average, this
indicator is 36.5%. However, it should be noted that this table shows data only for those countries that occupy the first place in terms of mineral output. If we add the top 3 countries for each mineral produced to this table, the overall picture will change significantly, and the average share of the mined resources will be from 66% and higher, with the average share of HHI equal to 2071, which indicates a high monopolization of the industrial minerals market (Figure 5).
Table 2. Share of world industrial minerals production 2018, by leading countries.
Industrial minerals Leading country in
terms of production Production in
2018, metric tons Share, % Share HHI
Asbestos Russia 752,500 61.36 3,764.86
Baryte China 3,100,000 33.67 1,133.66
Bentonite China 5,600,000 26.33 693.5
Boron Turkey 2,432,000 54.14 2,930.66
Diamonds (Gem) Russia 22,973,133 28.41 806.95
Diamonds (Ind) Russia 20,187,926 30.81 949.21
Diatomite United States 957,000 43.39 1,882.57
Feldspar Turkey 11,474,040 30.93 956.93
Fluorspar China 3,500,000 51.04 2,605.05
Graphite China 630,000 60.17 3,620.33
Gypsum and Anhydrite China 25,000,000 15.34 235.28
Kaolin China 7,500,000 18.03 324.97
Magnesite China 19,000,000 65.97 4,351.89
Perlite Turkey 1,088,983 39.95 1,595.97
Phosphates (P2O5-Content) China 28,897,800 40.07 1,605.91
Potash (K2O-Content) Canada 14,024,000 31.60 998.83
Salt China 58,361,700 20.42 417.17
Sulfur China 13,762,700 17.27 298.18
Talc China 2,000,000 25.37 643.53
Vermiculite South Africa 141,346 32.69 1,068.55
Zircon Australia 618,000 40.00 1,600.11
The analysis of mining-and-geological, economic and mining conditions of industrial minerals mining showed that there are a number of deposits for only opencast mining. Such deposits are characterized by low value of raw materials and not deep position (0-15 m). However, most of the deposits (for example, gypsum, anhydrite and limestone) can be worked underground with high profitability. These deposits are usually of sedimentary origin, and their depth varies in the range of 50-400 m. At the same time, the natural value of gypsum raw materials is higher than of cellar stone or sand, and the seams can be 5-20 m thick. Underground mining of such deposits can be done at sufficiently low costs. There are mining methods that can allow a subsoil user to get profit at least as high as in opencast mining, or even higher, given the costs of opencast mining in northern regions, maintenance of transport and utilities, mining benches, etc., in long snowy winters, constant artificial lighting, prolonged weather stand-by, as well as of mined-land reclamation. In this regard, it should be kept in mind that the share of environmental protection costs in technologically advanced countries (the USA, Japan,
France, etc.) is up to 30-50% of capital investments in industrial construction, which provides guidance for further development of priorities when choosing mining technology. To date, the environmental situation in the world is on the verge of catastrophe. It is necessary to tighten state control over the implementation of measures for mined-land reclamation and environment protection by mining enterprises. At the same time, it may be essential to create a positive climate at the state level for underground mining of industrial minerals to be investment attractive. For example, tax holidays should be given for enterprises that chose underground mining at a time when the opencast one was more profitable, otherwise charges on violation, alienation and land and water pollution should be significantly increased. There is a real chance to reduce the impact of a mining enterprise on the environment by replacing the technology used, or by partially introducing additional measures into the technology, such as, for example, reducing mining losses of minerals. We should always keep in mind that the environment is not something local, isolated.
Open Access 4572 Figure 5. The share of each industrial mineral production and their HHI index by the countries that occupy the
first 3 places in terms of mineral output.
These are earth shells, where geochemical fields are formed, which are in constant interaction with each other and affected by man-made factors. The latter often act against the background of developing natural exogenous geological processes, which aggravates the environmental situation. The current trends in the world community show that the environmental quality is to become one of the key factors of the state's competitiveness on the world stage. At present, according to scientists at Yale and Columbia Universities (USA), serious deterioration in environmental protection and public health in the period from 2000 to 2010, as well as negative environmental assessment indicators, led to the fact that Russia attained the most minimal success in protecting nature among 132 countries. Russia's exploitation of its rich natural resources sometimes goes "without regulatory compliance", which affects the air and water quality. According to the Financial Times, even China and India, with their huge emissions, were rated higher than Russia. The environmental situation is quality of the environment, which largely determines the population's health.
Recent years have seen a clear trend towards the increased influence of deteriorated environmental conditions on the population's health and the demographic situation in the world. Government incentives for industrial minerals underground mining will significantly reduce the environmental burden on the relevant mining areas with no loss of the economic attractiveness of the region. Based on the above, we
can propose a regional principle of specialization in the production of industrial minerals, taking into account the costs of mining, processing and transportation.
When mining industrial minerals, it is necessary to focus on the territory of compact consumers, forming nodes of concentrated consumption, since each such enterprise has its own radius of economic influence, determined by the location of existing and potential demand for its products. This rule is valid for most industrial minerals, except for facing stone, cement, gypsum, mineral wool, glass, where the transport costs of products are significantly less than in others.
Conclusions
An alternative to the opencast mining method is underground mining of industrial minerals deposits, but subsoil users refuse to apply it due to the need for large initial capital investments. This is usually motivated by economic comparison in favor of opencast mining. The calculations are based on the experience of analogue enterprises that not only is not always positive, but often simply not applicable.
Nevertheless, industrial minerals underground mining can be carried out with a relatively low production cost. Therefore, we had to analyze the current underground mining methods and identify those that could fit the requirements of industrial minerals underground mining. In turn, to identify these requirements, we should study mining-and-geological and mining conditions of industrial minerals deposit 30
40 50 60 70 80 90 100
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
Share, %
Industrial minerals
Share HHI
Share, % Share HHI
Open Access 4573 positions. The comprehensive analysis has shown that
environmentally sound technology for industrial minerals mining is the pillar-and-room method, the main advantages of which are simplicity of production, a wide front of work, application of high-performance equipment, low ore production cost and conservation of a mining area. The extraction ratio in the pillar-and- room mining method is significantly lower than in the caving one, but environmental safety is significantly higher, since when using the caving method, some pieces of land sink, sinkholes are formed.
The investment attractiveness of the pillar-and- room mining technology will undoubtedly increase if mineral loss is reduced. One of the areas of work to achieve this is to develop design element procedures for mining methods and determine the guideline extraction values. This task will lead to rising profits of a mining enterprise, thereby increasing tax paid to budgets at all levels. It is also necessary to create a comprehensive mechanism for full subsoil safety control to assess the environmentally sound technology of industrial minerals underground mining, which will allow the regulatory authorities to realistically evaluate the situation. To develop an assessment tool for the technology used for environmentally sound underground mining of industrial minerals is relevant in this regard.
Guidance on calculating and evaluating extraction values for the environmentally sound technology of industrial minerals underground mining can be such a tool. Thus, the next major step in developing the environmentally sound technology of industrial minerals underground mining is to provide a methodological rationale for the normalization principles of extraction values in industrial minerals underground mining and to upgrade the engineering methods to optimize extraction values. Design element procedures for mining methods are to help efficiently develop industrial mineral deposits with a minimum environmental burden on the mining area.
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