The largest metallurgical plants in Russia: top 10

Metallurgy is one of the most important industries in our century. Metal consumption is only growing every year, despite the emergence and active use of new types of plastic. Russia, as a country with a high level of production development, needs metal like no other. Mechanical engineering, tank building, construction and the production of basic necessities - all this depends on the timely supply of high-quality metal. Even the supply of ore and rolled metal requires metal. Today, in our TOP, we will talk about the largest metallurgical plants in Russia.

JSC Volzhsky Pipe Plant

The Volzhsky Pipe Plant was founded in 1970 and is one of the largest pipe production enterprises in Russia. Pipes produced by this plant are actively used for the gas, oil and chemical industries, as well as for mechanical engineering and thermal power engineering. The plant is located in the city of Volzhsky, Volgograd region. About ten thousand employees work within the walls of the plant, producing products for both our and foreign markets. The plant strives to preserve the environment, to justify and rational distribution and consumption of natural resources.

Metals in the Periodic Table

In the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, metals occupy a leading position. Of the 117 elements known today, more than 90 belong to metals. All these elements have a number of characteristic features that allow them to be classified as metals:

Capable of conducting electric current.
They have thermal conductivity.
Malleable, ductile, amenable to rolling into sheets and wire (not all).
They have a silvery sheen (except for copper and gold).

In addition to general properties, each such element also has a number of specific ones, which makes it so popular.

OJSC "Oskol Electrometallurgical Plant"

In the vicinity of the old town of Ancient Oskol there is the Oskol Electrometallurgical Plant . Opened in 1974, the plant, which became a pioneer in blast-furnace metallurgy, provides 11 thousand jobs. The product he produces is actively used in Russia and the CIS countries in the field of mechanical engineering and the pipe industry. Among the consumers there are such large names as Gorky Automobile ]AvtoVAZ[/anchor], UAZ, Norilsk Nickel and Volgograd Tractor Plant.

Typology

All metals as simple substances can also be divided into three classes:

Black.
Colored.
Precious.

Non-ferrous metals include everything except precious metals and iron. That is, it is copper, mercury, palladium, chromium, nickel, zinc, magnesium, calcium, aluminum, lead, tin and so on.

Precious metals include the following:

silver;
gold;
platinum

PJSC "Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant"

In addition to ChTPZ, there is another metallurgy giant in the city of Chelyabinsk. The Chelyabinsk Iron and Steel Works is a major center for the production of high-quality and high-quality steel products. In addition, the plant is a leader in the production of stainless steel. It is especially worth noting the fact that the plant has the right to put its own brand on the product. The Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant produces products for the needs of the nuclear industry, mechanical engineering, construction and even medicine.

Alternative power engineering

As in ferrous metallurgy, the main region for the production of non-ferrous metals is the Urals . There are deposits of copper in the area of the city of Gai, nickel in the Orenburg region, and aluminum ores in Severouralsk. Large production centers are located in Mednogorsk (copper smelting), Kamensk-Uralsk (aluminum production), and Orsk (nickel production). The main production factor here is the availability of raw materials. But many deposits have already been greatly depleted, so enterprises operate on imported raw materials.

The second region, as well as in the iron and steel industry, is the European North . Here, on the basis of its own reserves of nickel ores, production is located in the cities of Nikel and Monchegorsk. Factories in Kandalaksha operate on aluminum ores.

In the north of Siberia there is the largest center of copper-nickel production, as well as gold production, the city of Norilsk. 50% of copper, 90% of nickel and cobalt, and practically all of Russia’s platinum and gold are produced here. The main factor of placement here is the raw material factor.

Rice. 5. the city of Norilsk is the largest center of copper-nickel production

The south of Siberia is a large aluminum production area, both from its own raw materials and imported from the Urals and Kazakhstan. Large metallurgical plants are located here in Bratsk, Krasnoyarsk, Ust-Ilimsk, Sayanogorsk, Shelekhov. The main factor for locating in this area is not so much the extraction of raw materials, but the production of cheap electricity, since aluminum smelting is a very energy-intensive process.

Far East . Lead-zinc and tin ores, as well as gold, are mined here. Tin mining areas are the Deputatskoe deposit and the Ese-Khaya deposit, lead-zinc ores in the city of Dalnegorsk, and gold in Yakutia and the Magadan region. The main factor of placement is raw materials.

JSC "Vyksa Metallurgical Plant"

The Vyksa Metallurgical Plant is the oldest stronghold of metallurgy in Russia, founded in 1757. The plant is located in the Nizhny Novgorod region, in the city of Vyksa. The staff numbers more than 13 thousand people, who helped the plant win the title of leader in the field of pipe rolling and the production of wheels for railway transport. The plant's production capacity is two million pipes per year.

OJSC Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant

Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant is the largest pipe manufacturer in Russia. The plant is capable of fulfilling even the most complex and critical orders for pipelines of almost any diameter. ChelPipe has been operating since 1942, each time fully fulfilling any orders without complaints. For example, the plant supplied more than 600 tons of pipes for the construction of Nord Stream. This is facilitated by talented management and the hard work of 25 thousand employees.

OJSC "EVRAZ Nizhny Tagil Iron and Steel Works"

Iron and Steel Works is located in the large industrial city of . This is a powerful technological complex for the production of high quality steel. The plant is capable of producing parts with the highest demands in terms of quality and reliability. The main activity of the plant can be called the production of rolled metal for the construction of cars. In addition, we produce blanks for pipe rolling and mechanical engineering. The plant has also mastered the production of a special type of rolled steel, which is used in the production of main gas pipelines. The Nizhny Tagil Iron and Steel Works provides jobs for almost 20 thousand people.

Industry Composition

The full-cycle metallurgical industry for the smelting and processing of ferrous metals includes a large number of enterprises, the main ones of which perform the following tasks:

Extraction of metal ores, their enrichment.
Extraction and preparation of auxiliary non-metallic raw materials - refractory clay, limestone fluxes.
Coke and chemical industry, including coke oven gas production.
Smelting of ferrous metal, cast iron, castings, carbon steel and rolled products.
Recycling of ferrous metal scrap and production waste.

If we take metal manufacturing technology as a basis, we can distinguish the following types of metallurgical cycle:

cast iron blast furnace enterprises;
steel production, including open-hearth, electric arc, converter, continuous casting;
rolling production.

The basis of full cycle metallurgical production is blast furnace production of cast iron. The technology itself for recovering iron from ore using the blast furnace process involves saturating iron with a large amount of carbon, resulting in cast iron.

Steel is characterized by a lower carbon content and the inclusion of alloying additives, which requires additional processing stages in open-hearth furnaces, electric arc furnaces or oxygen converters. Thus, producing steel requires a lengthy and energy-intensive process.

Starting from the middle of the last century, blast-furnace metallurgy began to develop, which uses the direct reduction of iron from enriched raw materials.

Equipment and technology for blast-free steel production make it possible to reduce the energy consumption of production by reducing technological process operations; moreover, the steel is cleaner, without harmful impurities of sulfur and phosphorus, as in traditional production.

JSC "EVRAZ West Siberian Metallurgical Plant"

Novokuznetsk is home to the West Siberian Metallurgical Combine , founded in 1964. Almost 22 thousand people work on the territory of this enterprise, providing the country with the necessary amount of ferrous metal. In addition to supplies to the Russian market, EVRAZ West Siberian Metallurgical Plant JSC offers its products to the CIS countries, as well as to three dozen foreign countries. The plant produces construction and rail products. The plant has allocated three thousand hectares in Novokuznetsk for construction rentals. The complex is engaged in the production of cast iron from ore and profile rolling. The rail rolling complex produces rails for all needs and purposes - tram, railway and rails for the metropolis required by the metropolis.

What have we learned?

Today we learned what is meant by the term “metallurgical complex”. This industry is divided into ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy. The location of enterprises for mining, ore beneficiation, metal smelting and rolled products production has its own characteristics and depends on three factors: raw materials, fuel and consumer. There are three metallurgical bases operating and developing in the Russian Federation: Central, Ural and Siberian.

During the lesson, users will be able to get an idea of the topic “Geography of the metallurgical complex.” The basis of the metallurgical complex is the extraction of raw materials. Therefore, in this lesson we will discuss separately the geography of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, which are provided by different raw materials. You will find out what reserves of ferrous and non-ferrous metals Russia has and in which regions large deposits are concentrated.

Topic: General characteristics of the Russian economy

Lesson: Geography of the metallurgical complex

PJSC Severstal

Severstal is a company involved in the mining and steel industry. The metallurgical plant of this company is located in Cherepovets, a city in the Vologda region. This second largest plant in Russia, which employs 50 thousand people, was founded in 1955. The company produces rolled steel, various profiles and pipes of different diameters. The metallurgical plant produces 11.6 million tons of steel per year. And two mining and processing plants owned by Severstal annually produce 15 million tons of ore.

OJSC "Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant"

The largest steel casting plant is located in the city of Lipetsk. “ Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant ” is a plant with a full cycle of metallurgical production, from the extraction of the necessary raw materials to the production of finished products. The product produced by the plant, namely flat rolled sheet metal, is used in the most important industries of the country. This includes construction, mechanical engineering, production of complex equipment for the energy sector and large-diameter pipes. Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works produces 18% of all steel produced in Russia, namely 13.3 million tons per year. The plant employs 28 thousand people, performing work that is important for the country.

Problems and prospects

There are problems in every industry. The metallurgical complex is no exception. Among the main problems of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, the following can be identified:

high energy consumption;
low capacity of the domestic market;
high level of depreciation of fixed production assets;
shortage of certain types of raw materials;
destruction of the process of reproduction of raw materials and ore reserves;
technological backwardness and insufficient introduction of new technologies;
shortage of professional personnel.

Read also: Automatic welding machines in shielding gases

But all these issues can be resolved. Russia continues to be a major player in the global metallurgical products market. The share of Russian metallurgy in world production accounts for more than 5% of steel, 11% of aluminum, 21% of nickel, and more than 27% of titanium. The main indicator of the competitiveness of Russian metallurgy on the foreign market is that the country maintains and even expands its export capabilities.

OJSC Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant

In the city of Magnitogorsk, in the Chelyabinsk region, there is the largest metallurgical plant in Russia. Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant began production, which continues to this day, back in 1932. The area occupied by the plant is 11,835 hectares. MMK is a factory complex that completely provides the entire operating cycle independently. This means that the plant does everything itself - from the extraction of iron ore to the final processing of ferrous metals. The plant takes iron ore from a mine located in the city of Bakal. Magnitka employs about 19 thousand employees, providing annual steel production of 12 and a half million tons.

9 1

Geography of Russian ferrous metallurgy

Ferrous metallurgy is one of the most important sectors of the Russian economic complex and serves as the foundation for the development of many industries, primarily mechanical engineering.

In production of ferrous metals, Russia ranks 4th in the world after China (107 million tons), Japan (105 million tons) and the USA (about 100 million tons) (annual steel production in Russia is approximately 50 million tons, or 7% of its global production).

Russia ranks first in the export of ferrous metals (about 25 million tons, or more than 10% of world exports).

The Russian ferrous metallurgy is distinguished by its complex composition and high level of concentration and combination of production. The overwhelming majority (about 9/10) of cast iron, steel and rolled products here are produced by large enterprises with a full technological cycle, metallurgical plants.

The Central Black Earth region in the production of iron ore (concentrating more than 30% of the total production in the country), where the KMA with its deposits and mining and processing plants of world importance is located. Next comes the Urals , Northern region, Eastern and Western Siberia .

In coke production, the first Western Siberian region (Kuznetsk basin), then the European North (Pechora basin) and the Far East (South Yakutsk basin).

In all these areas of iron ore and coking coal mining, powerful (the largest in the country) metallurgical plants (Novolipetsk (in the Central Black Earth region), Cherepovets (in the Northern region), Magnitogorsk, Nizhny Tagil, Chelyabinsk and Orsko-Khalilovsky ( in the Urals), West Siberian and Kuznetsk (in Western Siberia)).

Process metallurgy enterprises are mainly focused on regions and centers of developed mechanical engineering, which have large sources of secondary raw materials and at the same time are places of consumption of finished products (steel, rolled products). They are created

in the North Caucasus (Krasny Sulin, Taganrog),

in the Volga region (Volgograd, Naberezhnye Chelny, Togliatti, etc.),

in the Volga-Vyatka region (Nizhny Novgorod),

in the Central region {Moscow, Elektrostal),

in the North-Western region (St. Petersburg),

in the Urals (Ekaterinburg, Izhevsk, etc.),

in the West Siberian region (Novosibirsk),

in the East Siberian region (Krasnoyarsk, Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky, etc.)

in the Far East (Komsomolsk-on-Amur),

those. in almost all economic regions of the country.

Small (shop) metallurgy is located directly at large machine-building plants.

Electrometallurgy of ferroalloys , due to high electricity costs (up to 9 thousand kWh per 1 ton of metal), has developed in areas where the production of cheap electricity is combined with alloying metal resources. (For example: Chelyabinsk in the Urals, etc.).

The totality of ferrous metallurgy enterprises (all types) located in one or neighboring areas, together with their raw material and fuel base, form ferrous metallurgy districts (bases).

In total, there are three such bases in Russia: Ural, Central, and Siberian.

The Ural base (Ural region) is the largest producer of ferrous metals in the country (about half of the production of cast iron, steel and rolled products). The ferrous metallurgy of the Urals uses imported fuel , coal from the Kuznetsk and Karaganda (Kazakhstan) basins, works on its own raw materials (ores from the Kachkanar and Bakyal deposits) and partially uses imported raw materials (ores from the KMA and Sokolovo-Sarbai deposits in Kazakhstan). Iron ore mining at its own deposits is carried out by open-pit mining. Most of the metal produced here is produced by metallurgical plants (Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Tagil, Novotroitsk). Pipe metallurgy (Ekaterinburg, Izhevsk, Zlatoust, Lysva, Serov, etc.), electrometallurgy of ferroalloys (Serov, Chelyabinsk) and pipe rolling (Pervouralsk, Kamensk-Uralsky) are more developed than in other regions. Naturally alloyed metals are being smelted (Novotroitsk, Verkhniy Ufaley). The cheapest metal in the country is produced in the Urals. The Urals exports more than half of its ferrous metal products abroad.

The central base (Central Chernozem, Central and Volga-Vyatka regions) operates on KMA iron ores, scrap metal resources and imported fuel coal from the Pechora, Kuznetsk and Donetsk (Rostov region) basins.

The Kursk Magnetic Anomaly (KMA) , the largest iron ore basin in the country, serves as a source of raw materials not only for factories in the Center, but also in the Northern and Ural regions, and also supplies ore for export. Most of the ore is mined by open pit mining. Along with rich ores, relatively iron-poor ferruginous quartzites (with an average iron content of about 32%) are also mined in large quantities. Iron ore mining is cheaper than in other areas. mining and processing plants in the country and in the world have been created (Lebedinsky, Mikhailovsky, Stoilinsky GOK).

The Gubkinsky and Yakovlevsky mines operate to extract deep reserves. Full-cycle plants Novolipetsk and Novotulsky produce most of the cast iron, steel and rolled products. Electrometallurgy has been developed (Oskol Electrometallurgical Plant in Stary Oskol, Belgorod Region with technology for direct reduction of iron from metallized pellets), pigment metallurgy (and Elektrostal in Moscow and the Moscow Region, plants in Nizhny Novgorod, Vyksa and Kulebaki in the Volga-Vyatka region) and small metallurgy (Moscow). The smelting of cast iron and blast furnace ferroalloys is carried out (plants in Tula and Lipetsk), and the production of cold-rolled strip (Oryol Steel Rolling Plant).

Siberian base (West Siberian, East Siberian and Far Eastern regions). The raw material base is the iron ores of Mountainous Shoria, Khakassia, Angara-Ilimsky, Angara-Pitsky and Aldan basins. Fuel base Kuzbass and South Yakutsk basin. Large mining and processing plants operate (Korshunovsky and Rudnogorsk in the Irkutsk region). Metal production is represented by the Kuznetsk and West Siberian metallurgical plants (both located in Novokuznetsk), conversion plants (Novosibirsk, Guryevsk, Krasnoyarsk, Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky, Komsomolsk-on-Amur), and ferroalloy plants (Novokuznetsk).

The Siberian base is the youngest of the country's bases and is in the process of formation. The prospects for its development are associated with the construction of metallurgical plants in Eastern Siberia (Taishet) and the Far East.

A new metallurgical base began to form in the Northern region , namely in the city of Cherepovets, where one of the largest metallurgical plants in the country is located. The Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant uses iron ore from the Kola Peninsula (Kovdorsky and Olenegorsky GOKs) and Karelia (Kostomuksha GOK) and coking coal from the Pechora basin . a conversion plant in St. Petersburg .

The Russian ferrous metallurgy is experiencing a shortage of manganese ores, large reserves and production of which are concentrated in the CIS in Ukraine (Nikopolskoye, Bolshoye Tokmakskoye deposits) and in Georgia (Chiaturskoye deposit). These same Commonwealth countries also stand out for the production of ferrous metals, represented by large plants in Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk, Dneprodzerzhinsk, Zaporozhye, Donetsk, Mariupol (in Ukraine) and Rustavi (Georgia), as well as ferroalloy plants in Zaporozhye (Ukraine) and Zestafoni (Georgia) ).

Non-ferrous metallurgy includes the production of non-ferrous, noble, rare metals and their alloys.

In terms of production volume, the smelting of aluminum (more than 45% of the annual smelting of non-ferrous metals in the world), copper (25%), zinc (16%) and lead (11%) stands out. The production of nickel, tin, magnesium, cobalt, tungsten, and molybdenum is significant.

Non-ferrous metallurgy is distinguished by some features that affect its placement.

1. High material intensity of production, which makes it unprofitable to separate processing from the sites of extraction of raw materials. The percentage of most non-ferrous metals in ores is small (usually from a fraction of a percent to several percent), which predetermines the “linking” of ore processing enterprises to the places of extraction of raw materials.

2. High energy intensity of production, which makes the development of the industry effective based on sources of cheap fuel and electricity. Since the production (smelting) of metals from enriched raw materials requires large amounts of energy, the stages of enrichment and metallurgical processing in non-ferrous metallurgy are often geographically separated.

3. The complex nature of the raw materials used. Many non-ferrous metal ores are polymetallic in nature, i.e. contain several metals. In order to completely extract (use) them in non-ferrous metallurgy, production combination is effective.

4. Widespread use of secondary raw materials in the production of resources (25-30% of copper and aluminum, up to 40-50% of lead are smelted from scrap). For this reason, the location of non-ferrous metallurgy industries in many cases is focused on secondary raw materials (scrap metal).

Different branches of metallurgy have their own placement characteristics.

The leading branch of non-ferrous metallurgy (in terms of production volume and use of products) in the modern world economy is the aluminum industry . Among other branches of non-ferrous metallurgy, this industry is characterized by the greatest complexity of production.

Aluminum production is divided into several stages.

The first stage of extraction of raw materials (bauxite, nepheline, alunite) is focused on rich deposits.

The second stage of aluminum oxide (alumina) production , being material-intensive and heat-intensive, tends, as a rule, to sources of raw materials and fuel.

The third stage of aluminum oxide electrolysis is focused on sources of cheap electricity (large hydroelectric and thermal power plants).

The main raw material for the production of alumina is bauxite, the world production of which is approximately 150 million tons per year. The vast majority of bauxite production and exports occur in Australia (almost a third of world production), Guinea, Jamaica, Brazil, China, India, Russia, Suriname, Greece, Venezuela, and Kazakhstan. Most of the feedstock (approximately 2/3) is processed into alumina locally in Australia, Brazil, Russia, Kazakhstan, etc. Part of the feedstock (approximately 1/3) is exported to countries where mineral fuels (local or supplied) are available for the production of alumina. parties) USA, Canada, Ukraine, Ireland, Sardinia (Italy), etc.

The production of aluminum metal has been predominantly developed in countries with large sources of cheap energy, large hydro resources and powerful hydroelectric power plants (USA, Russia, Canada, Brazil, Norway, etc.), rich in natural gas (Iraq, Bahrain, UAE, the Netherlands, UK, etc. .) or coal (Australia, India, China, etc.). In some old, traditional centers of aluminum smelting (France, Austria, Hungary, etc.), where energy is expensive, its production has been greatly reduced and is gradually disappearing. The largest aluminum producers in the world are Russia, USA, Japan, Germany, Italy.

The copper industry in its location is mainly focused on copper resources (natural and secondary raw materials). The low metal content in copper concentrates (from 8 to 35%) and the relatively low energy intensity of their processing (compared to aluminum smelting) make it profitable to locate copper production (smelting) in places where copper ores are mined and enriched. Therefore, the places of copper mining and smelting are often geographically combined. The main copper mining areas are in North and Latin America (Chile, USA, Canada, Peru, Mexico), Africa (Zambia, Zaire), CIS (Russia, Kazakhstan), Asia (Japan, Indonesia, Philippines), Australia and Oceania (Australia , Papua New Guinea).

The main copper-mining countries also stand out in terms of copper smelting; the leading place belongs to the USA, Chile, Japan, China, Canada, and Russia. Part of the mined ore in the form of concentrates and blister copper is exported to other countries (from Papua and the Philippines to Japan, from Latin American countries to the USA, from African countries to Europe, from Russia and Kazakhstan to Europe and China). Almost 1/5 of the world's copper smelting is based on scrap metal resources. The copper smelting industry in Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and other countries produces only recycled metal.

The zinc and lead industries usually have a common raw material base of polymetallic ores. Countries with the largest deposits of polymetals (USA, Canada, Mexico, Peru in North and Latin America, Ireland and Germany in Europe, Russia and Kazakhstan in the CIS, China, Japan, Australia) are also distinguished by their production. In terms of the size of lead and zinc smelting, the leading positions in the world are occupied by such countries as the USA, Japan, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, and Italy. China is a very large producer of lead and zinc. Russia is not among the top ten leading countries in global zinc and lead production.

The modern geography of the industry is characterized by territorial disunity of places of extraction and enrichment of lead and zinc ores and their metallurgical processing. For example, Ireland, which mines zinc and lead ores, does not have the capacity to smelt them, while in Japan, Germany, and France the volume of metal smelting significantly exceeds the volume of zinc and lead production in these countries. Along with the influence of other factors, this is explained by the possibility of using long-distance raw materials, since the transportability of zinc and lead concentrates due to their high metal content (from 30 to 70%) is exceptionally high.

Location of the tin industry . The majority (about 2/3) of tin mining and smelting comes from the countries of Southeast Asia and, above all, Malaysia. Bolivia, Russia, and China also have large-scale tin mining and smelting.

In the world production of zinc, lead and tin, as well as in the copper industry, the share of secondary raw materials (scrap metal) is large. This is especially typical for the non-ferrous metallurgy of developed countries, where secondary raw materials provide 50% of the smelting of lead, 25% of zinc and tin.