The article describes the current situation in the global uranium concentrate market, explains the reasons for the formation of an excess amount of finished goods and the subsequent decreasein prices. The authorsevaluated the prospects of using market mechanisms to improve the financial results of Russian uranium mining enterprises. The location of the main mining centers in comparison with the centers of consumption of finished goods, pricing for the products of uranium mining companies, the dynamics of price changes over the past 20 years, the influence of non-market factors on the supply of finished products are analyzed.This study led to the conclusion that the expectation of changes in the market situation is not viable in a long term. The authors outlined the direction to improve the profitability of mining enterprises by introducing technological changes aimed at reducing the cost of the final product.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the composition and properties of the materials and liquids during transportation using pipeline and shows that in order to increase the efficiency of hydraulic transport systems in mining a transition to the transportation of slurries with a high concentration of solids in the slurry flow is necessary. Experimental studies have shown that slurry tailings of gold-containing ore with mass concentrations of more than 55 % are viscoplastic fluids. Experiments on a rotational viscometer allowed us to establish the main rheological characteristics of the studied slurries – shear stress and the dynamic effective viscosity. It has been established that over the entire range of concentrations from 55 to 65 %, the flow of slurries is described by the Bingham rheological equation. Experimental studies of hydraulic transport performed on a laboratory setup with a pipeline diameter of 50 mm confirmed the results obtained on a rotational viscometer. The curved of mixture stream is inclined straight lines that are cut off on the axis of the head in the sections, which determine the initial hydraulic slope corresponding to the yield shear stress on the rheological curves. According to the results of the experiments, a method has been developed for calculating the hydraulic transport of high concentrated slurries of tailings of gold-bearing ore. Calculations showed that in a given range the performance of the hydrotransport system and the mass concentration of the solid phase pressure losses vary from 11 to 84 m of water column/m. Head loss values increase with the increasing concentration. A sharp increase in the head loss occurs in the concentration range from 60 to 65 % and higher.

The relevance of the research is due to the need to stabilize the composition of the melting products of copper-nickel sulfide raw materials in the Vanyukov furnace. The goal of this research is to identify the most suitable methods for the aggregation of the real time data for the development of a mathematical model for control of the technological process of melting copper-nickel sulfide raw materials in the Vanyukov furnace. Statistical methods of analyzing the historical data of the real technological object and the correlation analysis of process parameters are described. Factors that exert the greatest influence on the main output parameter (copper content in matte) and ensure the physical-chemical transformations are revealed. An approach to the processing of the real time data for the development of a mathematical model for control of the melting process is proposed. The stages of processing the real time information are considered. The adopted methodology for the aggregation of data suitable for the development of a control model for the technological process of melting copper-nickel sulfide raw materials in the Vanyukov furnace allows us to interpret the obtained results for their further practical application.