Arctic Yearbook 2015 | Page 40

40 Arctic Yearbook 2015 We will now look at coal delivery to Yakutia’s Arctic regions from the Dzhebariki-Khaya and Zyryanskiy mines, which supply consumers living in the lower reaches of the Lena, and the basins of the Yana, Kolyma, and Indigirka rivers. The special feature of these delivery schemes is the availability of en-route storage facilities. Part of the delivery of coal to consumers on the Yana and Indigirka rivers, where annually navigable depths meet their upper reaches for an average of only a month’s time, is stored in the river estuaries due to a non-concurrency in the river and marine navigation seasons. Coal may be stored in various storage facilities and river estuaries as required by operational and hydrological situations. Located in the Yana basin are the Ust-Yanskiy, Verkhoyanskiy, and Even-Bytantaiskiy regions (uluses). Delivery of fuels via vessels (Figure 4) is performed with 2-3 or more transshipments and en route storage, in some cases in the second navigation year. Coal is shipped by water for most of the route from deposits to the settlements of Nizhneyansk (Figure 5), Ust-Kuiga (Figure 6), Saidyy, and Batagai. Volumes of coal delivery to these destinations depend on the hydrological conditions on the Yana and the quality of operation and logistics management. The coal is delivered to end-point consumers by motor-vehicle transport via winter roads (Figure 7). Any planned volumes of coal from the previous navigation season which haven’t yet been shipped by water are also transported by winter roads with an operation period of around 3.5-4.5 months. Figure 4: Coal shipment by river (Figure 4-7 Photos by V. Zaharova, V. Gavrilova) Figure 6: Coal storage unit (Ust-Kuiga) Figure 5: Transshipment coal storage unit (Nizhneyanskiy) Figure 7: Coal loading on to motor-vehicles (UstKuiga) State Support of Delivery of Fuel & Energy Resources