The goal of "carbon neutralization" has brought new opportunities and challenges to the development of mining enterprises. Mining industry as the most important basic industry of social and economic development, the mode of production has undergone profound and systematic changes with the social progress and the continuous improvement of productivity. Shandong Gold Group, as the leading enterprise in the gold industry, their road of high-quality development may provide guidance for the industry to achieve "carbon neutralization".
Shandong gold has developed rapidly in recent years. So far, it has firmly ranked first among gold-producing enterprises in the country for four consecutive years, and in 2020, it has achieved the strategic goal of having a market capitalization of more than 100 billion yuan and entering the top 10 in the world ahead of schedule, rewriting the history of the top 10 global gold companies without Chinese enterprises in one fell swoop. The mining enterprises under its jurisdiction are distributed in China, Argentina, Ghana and other places, and it is the only enterprise with a cumulative gold production of more than 100 tons in three mines in China. Among them, Sanshandao Gold Mine, Jiaojia Gold Mine, Xincheng Gold Mine and Linglong Gold Mine have been listed as the top ten gold production mines in China for many years in a row, and the Belladro gold mine in Argentina, which is jointly operated with Barrick Gold Company, has become the second largest gold mine in South America.
In the current "carbon peak, carbon neutralization" background, Shandong Gold seeks to start a new round of development under the new situation. "this is not only an energy revolution, but also an extremely extensive and profound green industrial revolution, which will restructure the entire manufacturing industry and promote the zero-carbon transformation of the manufacturing industry with an inverted mechanism. For our gold industry, the proposal of this goal also has a great impact, will bring a new round of industrial changes, and provide a new development opportunity for the transformation of new and old kinetic energy of the gold industry. " Chen Yumin, party committee secretary and chairman of Shandong Gold Group, said.
1. Carbon neutralization by innovation
In the final analysis, the realization of carbon neutralization depends on innovation to speed up ecological innovation and fundamentally change the mode of production. Prior to this, Shandong Gold has begun to explore the road of high-quality development of the mining industry.
In the face of the new trend of global mining ecological intelligence development, and the leading advantages of international enterprises in resources, science and technology, production, management, etc., in 2017, as one of the key projects for the conversion of new and old kinetic energy in Shandong Province, Shandong Gold took the lead in creatively putting forward the strategic idea of building an "international first-class demonstration mine" in the global mining industry, and decided to take Sanshandao Gold Mine as a pilot project. Comprehensively build an "international first-class demonstration mine" with "intrinsically safe, intelligent, green ecology, harmonious community and leading efficiency" to promote the high-quality development of the mine.
In 2018, the project officially started construction. Shandong Gold has set up special leaders and working groups to hold international seminars on planning plans. Groundbreaking exploration and practice have been carried out in many aspects, such as efficient mining technology, three-dimensional mining design, intelligent mining system, intelligent concentrator construction, production safety management, ecological environment upgrading, and so on. Finally, the overall construction of the project was completed by the end of 2020.
In this process, through the reform of mining technology and the upgrading of mining equipment, the production efficiency has been greatly improved. To build the industry's first collaborative intelligent mining method and a complete set of technical system for the upper and lower parts of the broken orebody in the deep gold deposit, to break through the technical problems of safe and efficient mining of the broken orebody in the deep metal mine, and to provide strategic technical guarantee for the safe, efficient and sustainable development of China's deep mineral resources.
At the same time, highly actively promote digital empowerment work. Actively apply 5G, big data, artificial intelligence, Internet of things and other technologies to construction projects, and conduct online and offline special technical exchange meetings with Huawei, China Mobile, ABB, Mining and Metallurgical Science and Technology Group to ensure that the technical solutions are advanced and feasible. By carrying out digital transformation work around the four levels of perception, transportation management, service and decision-making, it has opened up many isolated islands of information, such as production, management, safety, automatic control and so on.
In 2020, Shandong Gold vigorously promoted the operation of the data center, and multiple information systems of 12 subordinate units completed the work of going to the cloud. It has realized the remote control transformation of the first imported rock drilling rig in China and the application of 5G technology, carried out the research and application of intelligent shovel loading transportation system based on 5G technology, and explored the industrial application of 5G technology in underground mines. to create an unmanned operation scene with the integration of shovel loading and transportation.
In the industry, it is the leading mining giant in the world. According to reports, the mining site of Rio Tinto is almost unattended, the staff are remotely controlled in the urban area 1500 kilometers away, shovel, loading and transportation can be remotely controlled, and intelligence reduces Rio Tinto's loading and transportation costs by 15 per cent. This intelligent terminal scene makes Shandong Gold have a clearer goal.
"in the next step, we should still persist in taking innovation as the first driving force, digitalization, networking, intelligence, and greening as the technological basic point to enhance core competitiveness, and prominently speed up the transformation and application of 5G and other cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements. We will speed up the pace of digital transformation in an all-round way." Chen Yumin said.
From a longer-term point of view, innovation can not only solve the problem of carbon emissions, but also the fundamental driving force of economic growth. After three years of effective exploration and innovative practice, profound changes have taken place in the mine. Personal safety, equipment safety and environmental safety are more guaranteed, production design, production operations, production and operation are more efficient, and labor costs, power costs and material costs are more controllable. The "double zero" achievement of safety and environmental protection has become the greatest benefit of the mine. The digitization, automation and intelligent system of the whole process has reduced 254 field operators, the labor cost is expected to be reduced by more than 38 million yuan, the annual direct economic benefit can be increased by more than 40 million yuan, and the cumulative annual direct economic benefit is about 80 million yuan.
two。 Build a responsible gold enterprise
In 2019, the World Gold Council issued the principles of responsible Gold Mining, which, as the first ESG framework of the gold mining industry (environment, society, corporate governance), defines the elements of responsible gold mining for investors, stakeholders in the gold industry and the supply chain of the downstream gold industry. As a member of the China Committee of the World Gold Council, Shandong Gold Group has jointly participated in and supported the formulation of this principle.
The principle makes it clear that environmental responsibility is central to the company's operations, while in the energy and climate change rules, it is proposed to improve water resources and energy use efficiency, support the achievement of global climate agreement goals by avoiding, reducing or reducing carbon emissions, and strive to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible.
"it is a new challenge not only for Chinese mining enterprises, but also for other enterprises around the world, how to make arrangements and plans for carbon emissions and carbon neutralization under the principle of responsible gold mining, this is also a challenge for all of us." Wang Lixin, managing director of the World Gold Council in China, said. "in fact, we are also very happy to see that some of the leading domestic mining groups, such as Shandong Gold, have begun to make a layout in this regard."
As early as 2010, Shandong Gold established the development concept of "ecological mining", which runs through the whole process of enterprise development and spares no effort to promote the construction of green mines. During the 13th five-year Plan period, it took the lead in building the first green mining group in the country that integrates green mines, green factories and green exploration.
Especially in terms of carbon emissions, many useful explorations and practices have been carried out in the promotion and application of clean energy such as geothermal and solar energy, the use of photovoltaic and air compressor waste heat for power generation, the use of intelligent lighting and efficient energy-saving lamps, etc., but their low-carbon and zero-carbon road to the standard "carbon peak, carbon neutralization" goal still has a long way to go.
According to the relevant arrangements of Shandong Gold, on the basis of full investigation and understanding of the enterprise's carbon emission base, energy consumption structure and carbon reduction space potential, based on the enterprise development strategy, seek to cooperate with professional intermediary agencies, study and formulate the group's medium-and long-term implementation plan before 2030, and steadily build a long-term management mechanism. To strive for favorable conditions for enterprises to strive for carbon emission quotas, carbon emission rights, participation in carbon trading and long-term development strategy in the next step.
On the other hand, efforts should be made to promote the work of reducing pollution and carbon. Priority should be given to source control measures such as fossil energy substitution, production process optimization and industrial structure upgrading, speed up the elimination of equipment and processes with backward technology, high energy consumption and low comprehensive utilization efficiency, and strictly control the construction of projects with high energy consumption and high emissions. Deeply excavate the energy saving space, reduce the carbon emission intensity, and include the energy consumption, environmental emissions and comprehensive utilization of resources which are closely related to carbon emission reduction as binding indicators in the assessment system to promote the transformation of enterprises to green and low carbon. To carry out research on low-carbon cutting-edge technology and take the construction and promotion of "international first-class demonstration mines" as an opportunity to actively promote the application of new technologies such as intelligent mines, digital factories, artificial intelligence, big data, Internet of things, industrial robots, 5G communications, and so on, to further improve the level of green technology in mining, production and processing and other important links, to ensure that we can seize the position and win the first opportunity in the spring tide of low-carbon development in the industry.
For the gold industry, due to the non-renewable nature of gold itself and the imbalance of global distribution, enterprises can not rely solely on the "domestic great cycle" to meet the needs of the industrial chain supply chain system. In this regard, Chen Yumin said that we must accurately grasp the opportunity of in-depth adjustment of the global industrial pattern, while grasping the merger and integration of domestic resources and building a world-class gold production base, unswervingly "go out" to reserve large-scale high-quality mineral resources, consolidate the production and reserve base of overseas resources, constantly expand the financing and development space of the international capital market, and create a road of high-quality development with unique Shanjin characteristics. Cut into the carbon neutral new track to achieve a low-carbon future with higher quality development.
