Siberia, Russia — Russia’s biggest coal mining company, SUEK-Krasnoyarsk, appears to have embraced technology and innovation to protect the environment, reduce dust emissions and operational costs, while remaining profitable.
The company has rehabilitated all the old shafts after excavation at Borodino Mine, opted for railway lines rather than trucks to collect coal, and used electricity instead of diesel for all its mining operations. Located in the Siberia region, central Russia, Borodino is one of the three coal mines owned by SUEK-Krasnoyarsk, a private company based in the capital Moscow.
Addressing the international media at the open-cast mine in the town of Borodino, about 4,200 kilometres east of Moscow in Siberia on Tuesday, July 8, SUEK-Krasnoyarsk general director Evgeny Evtushenko said the company adopted a combination of innovation and technology to save the environment and make a profit.
He said Borodino coalmine uses its own railway lines to transport coal, and opted to use electricity for all its main mining equipment rather than diesel.
Evtushenko said the Borodino mine alone accounts for 26 million tons of coal a year, employs 3,000 people and supplies the majority of coal-fired power stations in Russia.
He said the mine, established during the Soviet era in 1949, exceeded 1.2 billion tons of coal this year. And it still has more than 100 years to reach its life span. Evtushenko said SUEK-Krasnoyarsk serves exclusively the domestic market.
“Our main mission is to ensure the energy security of the country, and that’s what we do. That also means being environmentally sensitive too. We don’t export it. We work for the domestic market,” Evtushenko said. “This is perfect fuel for large cities because it doesn’t emit smoke when burned.”
During a media tour of Borodino’s seven-kilometre open-cast mine, heavy mining equipment and railway carts could be seen all over the premises. Heavy machines were seen loading coal into the railway carts lined up nearby. Very little, if any, dust could be spotted in the two hours we spent at the mine.
The eastern side of the mine was spotted with freshly planted vegetation.
Evtushenko said the area was the site of the old shafts, which were filled with rocks after excavation and had vegetation planted as part of the mine’s rehabilitation efforts.
The SUEK-Krasnoyarsk general director added that the mine kept moving towards the Western side because they did not mine deeply but sideways.
“We fill the holes as we move from one area to the other. We have no open holes in the mine. We don’t mine deeper into the ground but sideways towards the west. So, the mine keeps moving. Where we mined in the previous years, we filled all holes with rocks and planted vegetation. So, we definitely don’t have any abandoned open holes,” Evtushenko added.
As part of the company’s social responsibility program, he said, Borodino employs 30% of the town’s 14,000 population, and has built roads, recreational centres and healthcare facilities. Evtushenko would not talk about the company’s revenue and annual turnover.
Professor Dmitry Bessarabov, Engineering Faculty HySA Director at North West University in South Africa, was part of the people who visited the Borodino mine to get a sense of its operations. He said the mine’s environmental protection strategies were impressive.
“They do restoration and rehabilitation when the coal mine is depleted, and I think that is a great environmental protection mechanism. That’s great for the mine and its social responsibility programs. It will benefit the next generation, and keep the mine clean. I was impressed with that,” said Bessarabov, who is also a member of the board of the Global Energy Association (GEA).
Didier Tela, the CEO of the Association of Power Utilities of Africa (APUA) and a board member of the Global Energy Association, added that the mine’s emissions control and overall environmental protection strategies were palpable.
“We are having this interview now in the middle of the mine, the noise and emissions are limited. They also rehabilitate the land after excavation to have green grass. Coal remains an integral part of the energy mix, and will remain so for years to come,” Tela said.
In a discussion later that day, Tela expressed concern about pro-renewable energy lobby groups across the world. The Ivorian water engineer said lobbyists used the United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop) to spread misleading information about other energy sources, especially coal and nuclear.
Tela partly blamed pro-renewal energy lobby groups for the energy crisis that crippled South Africa’s economy for more than a decade until Eskom, the country’s power utility, finally recovered in 2024.
“I stopped going to the Cop in Glasgow. I was not in Baku and am not going to Brazil, because the discussions in Cop are not sincere. South Africa paid a price for following exclusive just energy transition despite its abundant coal deposits. For 10 years, it had a power crisis. It has come out of it now; Eskom has recovered, but the damage has been done. The economy had suffered for 10 years,” Tela added.
