METHODOLOGY FOR DETERMINING WESTERN SIBERIA’S DEMAND FOR QUARTZ SANDS AND KAOLIN

L. V. GAVRILINA, V. B. BURAN, P. G. USOV

(Presented by the scientific seminar of the Department of Economics)

Among the most important problems connected with substantiating the prospects for the development of both individual production facilities and entire branches of industry, great attention is devoted to questions of determining the demand for means of production and consumer goods. All social needs may be satisfied in various ways, the number of which, with the advance of technical progress, is steadily increasing. This is especially characteristic of the present stage of the scientific and technological revolution, distinguished by the emergence of new sources of energy, new objects of labor, and the improvement of equipment and technology.

Scientifically substantiated demand is the basis of long-term planning, as was emphasized in the Directives of the Twenty-Fourth Congress of the CPSU. A major role in determining the economically justified demand of the eastern regions of the country and, in particular, the regions of Western Siberia for Tugansk sands is played by the question of studying the balance. The balance method of planning determines the need to justify the planned sizes of individual production facilities (production of technical glass, building brick, chamotte, etc.) by the demand for them of the corresponding branches of industry. In determining the demand of the regions of Western Siberia for the raw-material resources of the Tugansk deposit, it is important to take into account the solution of such major tasks as the development of the glass and metallurgical industries, civil and industrial construction, and so forth.

Ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy, the chemical industry, machine building, and power engineering have firmly established themselves as the leading branches of industry in Western Siberia. They are major consumers of refractory and molding materials, the demand for which is constantly increasing. According to long-term plans, powerful industrial and civil construction is being developed in Siberia and the Far East; this requires an intensive increase in the capacities of the construction base and, in particular, the exploration of sufficient raw-material resources of sand, kaolin, etc., to meet the demand for glass and construction materials. At present, many branches of the developing industry of Western Siberia are experiencing a particular need for high-quality glass and molding sands, refractory, high-melting, and other clays, and are forced to use sands and clays brought from distant regions—from Ukraine, the Moscow region, Ulyanovsk Oblast, and even the North Caucasus. The necessity of significant

development of the glass industry in Siberia is dictated by the shortage of construction and technical glass. According to data from the institute “Giprosteklo,” Western Siberia’s demand for this product will increase both absolutely and relatively. Thus, the shortage in the eastern regions of the country in quartz sands and kaolins determines the interest in the Tugansk deposit on the part of such sectors as glass, construction, building ceramics, porcelain and faience, pulp and paper, foundry work, the refractory industry, rubber-engineering products, abrasives, and oil refining.

The exceptionally favorable properties of the sands of the Tugansk deposit determine their role in the development of these sectors. A number of research institutes (GIS, TsNIIGRI, GIREDMET, etc.) have provided a technical substantiation for the use of the mineral resources of the Tugansk deposit. Therefore, it is first of all necessary to study the fields of application and the consumption structure of sands and kaolin (see Table 1).

Table 1

Scheme for the use of nonmetallic materials for industry, indicating all technical requirements and comparing them with the requirements during operation

Quartz sand from the Tugansk deposit has great national-economic significance; it is widely used in production

high-transparency window and technical glass, glass blocks, and vessel glass of improved quality. In terms of its chemical composition it is suitable for all types of glass (except optical glass).

In the foundry industry, quartz sand is consumed as a molding material in obtaining molding mixtures for steel, nonferrous, and iron casting. In the construction industry, quartz sand is used as an aggregate in the production of aerated concrete, ordinary concrete, red building brick, sand-lime brick, and blocks with autoclave processing. The high quality of the Tugan kaolins makes it possible to use them as fillers in the tire, cable, rubber-products, paper, and a number of other industries. As a highly refractory material, the Tugan kaolins can serve as the main raw-material base for developing the production of fireclay materials, building ceramics, etc.

Thus, the integrated use of the components of the non-ore part of the Tugan deposit ensures the production of a wide range of raw materials (sand, kaolins, etc.) for many branches of industry.

For plans calculated for a relatively short period of time (1–2 years), demand is determined by direct calculation as

\[ \Pi = \sum_{1}^{m} K_{\mathrm{pr}} \cdot N_{\mathrm{yr}}, \]

where \(N_{\mathrm{yr}}\) is the production program of all consuming branches;
\(m\) is the number of consuming branches;
\(K_{\mathrm{pr}}\) is the progressive specific consumption norm for individual types of raw material.

For long-term planning (for a period of 5–10 years), direct calculation is difficult to use; therefore an indirect calculation is employed, i.e., the ratio in the consumption of quartz sand and kaolin, as well as their consumption structure over the preceding period in the regions of Western Siberia, is taken into account. Therefore, in order to compile a balance, it is important to study the fields of application and the consumption structure of the individual components of the Tugan deposit.

The balance must consist of the following parts:
a) the demand of the regions of Western Siberia for Tugan sands;
b) coverage of these demands;
c) results (deficit, surplus). (See table.)

The economically justified demand for sands and kaolins in the regions of Siberia and the Far East, and its relationship to the resources of the Tugan deposit, must be fully reflected in the balance that will be compiled in the course of the entire work.

In addition to the summary balance, it is necessary first to compile balances for individual types of products from them, and then, in accordance with the economically justified demand for quartz, molding, and construction sands, kaolins, and all raw-material resources of the Tugan deposit that must be used effectively, the scale of individual productions can be determined.

When considering the principles of the economic justification of Western Siberia’s demand for non-ore raw materials, it is necessary to classify them in accordance with the specific features of their use.

The following grouping can be recommended, taking into account their purpose:

a) quartz sand for the glass industry;

b) molding sand for foundry production;
c) construction sand for the building industry;
d) kaolins for the production of ceramics and for the paper industry;
e) clay for the production of refractories.

When determining Western Siberia’s demand for sands and kaolin, it is also necessary to take into account such an important factor as the economic purpose of the products that consume this raw material. In determining the demand for raw materials and materials for the production of means of production, the principal factors are technical expediency and economic efficiency; whereas in the demand for raw materials and materials for the production of consumer goods, a major role is played by other factors, such as the effective demand of the population, the aesthetic properties of products, changes in fashion, and so on. That is, the magnitude of demand for nonmetallic raw materials is influenced by many factors of a technical, economic, and social character.

The main factors for determining demand may be identified as follows:

a) the prospects for development of the sectors consuming nonmetallic raw materials from the Tuganskoye deposit;
b) the scale of their production;
c) the quality of the consumed initial raw material (sand, kaolins), etc.;
d) production technologies.

The ever-increasing role of sectors that mainly consume nonmetallic raw materials is due to the rapid rates of development of these sectors in the regions of Western Siberia. A striking example is provided by the figures for the prospective development of civil and industrial construction and of the building-materials industry as a whole.

A comparison of the planned volumes of construction and installation work with those actually carried out in 1961–1965 shows that in the West Siberian economic region they will increase by a factor of 2.1 over the period 1971–1975. At present, enterprises of the construction base are not sufficiently supplied with high-quality building materials, which, in turn, has a sharp effect on the reduced quality of building-material products and on the increase in their consumption norms. Thus, the growth in the volume of capital construction in Western Siberia requires the rapid development and technical improvement of the construction industry and the building-materials industry.

The development of the glass industry in Western Siberia is connected primarily with the shortage of window and technical glass. The consumption of construction glass has its own specific features, determined above all by construction. Technical progress in construction, and the transformation of construction into a mechanized process of assembling and installing buildings and structures, require from the glass industry a constant expansion of the range of construction glass, improvement of its quality, and a higher degree of factory readiness. An increase in the production of construction glass during the current five-year plan is envisaged not through the construction of new enterprises, but through the intensification of existing glass plants, and, at the Anzhero-Sudzhensk plant, only to an extremely limited extent.

The refusal to expand glass production in Western Siberia is due to the absence in this region of a raw-material base, although there are indisputable prospects here for identifying large local deposits of quartz sands, kaolin, and other clays for the creation of regional centralized, mechanized, and automated enterprises for the extraction of raw materials. The economic advisability of constructing a glass plant in Western Siberia

At present, it is determined by the real possibility of creating a solid raw-materials base, by the availability of energy resources—natural gas, introduced into the southern districts by the gas pipeline designed from the open fields of Tomsk Oblast; by the emergence of additional demand for construction glass with the development of the oil-and-gas-chemical, woodworking, metallurgical, and other industries, and of the industrial and residential construction associated with them.

The significant rates of prospective development of the metallurgical industry of Western Siberia, machine building, and ceramic and rubber production are also indicated by the large figures for consumption of such types of nonmetallic raw materials as molding sand and kaolins, and refractory clays. All this once again emphasizes that the principal factor in determining the demand for sands and kaolins is the development of all the above-mentioned branches of industry.