SYKTYVKAR, July 18. /TASS/. Key investment projects included in the master plan for development of the Komi Region's polar city of Vorkuta are estimated at 257 billion rubles ($3.3 million). Those are projects to build a chemical complex to produce carbamide and saltpeter, estimated at 200 billion rubles ($2.6 million), and a project to build up coal production, the region's Ministry of Economic Development told TASS.
"A long-term plan for Vorkuta's integrated social and economic development to 2035 is based on the master plan and the Vorkuta spatial development strategy. Key investment projects under the plan are bigger coal production by Vorkutaugol <...>, as well as the construction of the Vorkuta Chemical Complex - new facilities to produce carbamide and saltpeter. <...> Investments in the key projects are estimated at 257 billion rubles," the region's Ministry of Economic Development told TASS.
Vorkutaugol's bigger coal production means the construction of new mines and the upgrade of existing ones, the ministry added. The company plans to create a coal chemical production to make briquettes from coal processing waste.
According to Komi's Acting Governor Rostislav Goldstein, the project to build a gas chemical complex costs 200 billion rubles ($2.6 million), and it is at a high stage of implementation: a preliminary feasibility study, a financial model, preliminary design documents are in place. A site for the complex is 218 hectares between Vorkuta's villages of Severny and Oktyabrsky. The construction term is 2027-2032. The new facility will produce annually 1,050,000 tons of carbamide and 616,000 tons of porous saltpeter, offering 1,500 jobs, he said in an interview with TASS during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
About social facilities
A master plan or strategy for the spatial development of Vorkuta has been prepared and transferred from the Vorkutaugol city-forming enterprise to state ownership. Based on it, a long-term plan for the integrated social and economic development of Vorkuta until 2035 has been formed. According to the document, it is also planned to upgrade and equip a number of social infrastructure facilities: healthcare, education, sports, cultural heritage objects, the construction of a waste sorting complex with a landfill for municipal solid waste and the revegetation of the existing landfill.
The planned demand for the implementation of Vorkuta's long-term development plan is more than 45 billion rubles ($577 million), where 30 billion rubles ($385 million) come from the federal budget.
"According to Russia's Ministry for Development of the Far East and Arctic, the Russian government's draft order on long-term plans to 2035 to develop the Arctic's backbone settlements, including Vorkuta, is at the final stage," the ministry added.
Vorkuta is a city with a population of 57,000 people, one of the 16 backbone territories in the Russian Federation's Arctic Zone. About 6,000 residents are employed with coal mining and auxiliary industries of the Vorkutaugol city-forming enterprise, which since 2021 is part of AEON Corporation's Russian Energy Company.