Vol 56 Iss. 3

In recent years, an exceptional amount of attention has been paid to the problems of economic justification of the efficiency of exploration work. Nevertheless, there is still no generally accepted methodology for determining the economic efficiency of exploration work.

The problem of centralized accounting has been advanced by the entire practice of socialist construction: the implementation of the sectoral principle of management, the widespread use of automated systems in the national economy and the associated use of electronic computers, the further improvement and reduction in cost of the management apparatus and the reduction of expenditures on its maintenance. For the coal industry, in connection with the elimination of multi-level management and the creation of production associations, this problem is especially important. It is necessary to study it comprehensively and to adopt such decisions as would contribute to transforming centralized accounting into a real management function with all the qualities inherent in that function.

At present, major qualitative changes are taking place in social production. The scale of production, its concentration, deepening specialization, structural shifts in the economy are sharply increasing. All these changes, due to the rapid pace of scientific and technological progress, complicate production relations, and therefore to management. This imposes higher requirements on management, as the improvement of management of the national economy largely depends on the efficiency of social production.

When solving questions about the order of development of deposits, about the allocation of costs for geological exploration, design, construction and operation of enterprises, when comparing the performance of existing enterprises there is a question of objective comparison of the comparative value of alluvial and primary deposits as sources of a scarce raw material – tin. This question is part of a wider question of objective comparison of the value of deposits, at which mining enterprises can be created with different terms of operation, the structure of the index of reduced costs (by the ratio of operating costs and capital intensity) and the structure of the fixed assets themselves (by the ratio of active and inactive assets).

In practice, the results of geological exploration in monetary terms are assessed at estimated cost. In this regard, the issues of forming specific estimated rates become important. However, these issues have so far been insufficiently studied. The development and substantiation of principles for constructing cost estimates should contribute to their positive solution. The first steps in this direction have already been made.

The Directives of the 24th Congress of the CPSU on the five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR for 1971–1975 set the task for industry of increasing production efficiency, reducing production costs, and ensuring the profitable operation of all enterprises.

The mining industry is a labor-intensive branch. This is confirmed by the share of wage costs in the cost per unit of production (45–60%). Labor productivity in the mining industry is determined by natural, technical, organizational, psychophysiological, economic and social factors. In the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution, in connection with the improvement of the means of labor and work technology, the most important role is played by technical factors.

The problem of raising the productivity of social labor has always been key. However, in the conditions of developed socialism, when the material and technical basis of communism is being created, the task of accelerating the growth rate of labor productivity has acquired special significance and new content. During the period of the scientific and technological revolution, with the increased opportunities of the national economy and a significant rise in the welfare of working people, high rates of growth of labor productivity are envisaged in all branches of material production.

A necessary condition for the further improvement of the efficiency of social production and the accelerated development of the mining industry is the existence of correct, scientifically substantiated prices for the products of this industry. Prices for marketable products of the mining industry must correspond to the greatest extent to their economic basis – value, take into account the consumer qualities of the products and differential mining rent.

The products of the mining industry are intended for industrial and personal consumption. Therefore, only those minerals are subject to extraction which, in their material content, must satisfy certain requirements of the consumer. These requirements for the quality of the product are fixed in normative documents – state standards (GOSTs) or technical specifications (TS).

The growth of labor productivity is a fundamental issue of the policy and practice of communist construction, an indispensable condition for raising the well-being of the people, and the creation of an abundance of material and cultural benefits for working people.

The planned increase in the volume of geological exploration in the coming years, owing to the need to expand the mineral resource base of the national economy, is associated with large expenditures. It is no coincidence that the Directives of the 24th Congress of the CPSU provide for increasing the efficiency of geological exploration as one of the main tasks.

Much attention is currently paid to the development and implementation of automated planning and control systems. A modern industrial enterprise is unthinkable without optimal planning and control on the basis of the latest computer technology. However, the application of computer technology alone will not improve the operational planning and management of the enterprise.

In the Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 24th Party Congress, L. I. Brezhnev paid special attention to the fact that the party attaches great importance to the improvement of Soviet legislation. This provision fully applies to Soviet labor legislation as well.

Losses of minerals have a negative effect on the economy of an enterprise and the industry, increasing production costs and shortening the service life of mining enterprises. However, the inevitability of losses under existing mining technologies also has a positive side: losses of minerals in pillars, depending on the purpose of the latter, reduce to a greater or lesser extent the costs of supporting and maintaining mine workings; writing off substandard areas of the mine field as losses helps to reduce production costs.

The Directives of the 25th Congress of the CPSU on the ninth five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR set higher rates of development for the aluminum industry. The expected increase in output in 1971–1975 will be 50–60%, and labor productivity will rise by no less than 40%. Over the past five years (1966–1970), aluminum production in the USSR rose by more than 50%.

One of the most tangible results of the scientific and technological revolution is the increasing concentration of production. Only a large enterprise is capable of solving a set of problems associated with the introduction of scientific and technological achievements into production, the use of electronic computer technology, the automation of technological processes, etc. Therefore, the organization of industrial management in the USSR is being improved as a result of the enlargement of enterprises through the creation of associations.

The development of advanced information support is one of the most important problems arising in the creation of automated control systems (ACS). The need to organize extremely large arrays of diverse information and to access them efficiently (recording, reading, information retrieval, processing) requires the inclusion in the ACS of a complex and multifunctional information retrieval system (IRS).

When an accident occurs at a mine, initial response measures are put into effect, which are determined by a previously developed accident liquidation plan (ALP) containing a list of measures to ensure the safe exit of people from the mine and the earliest possible liquidation of the accident.

The intensity of manifestations of rock pressure is one of the main factors that determine the technical and economic performance of mining enterprises with the underground mining method. Thus, without a comprehensive consideration of manifestations of rock pressure, the problems of optimal planning of mining operations, the search for schemes of location, support and maintenance of mine workings, ensuring high productivity and safety of mining operations, cannot be successfully solved. The development of methods of operational control of rock pressure parameters is an important trend of technical progress in the mining industry.