Research and Education Center with BelAZ participation to be set up in St. Petersburg

BelAZ and Saint Petersburg Mining University plan to establish a research and education center of mining transport engineering on the basis of the university. The agreements were reached during the visit of the Belarusian enterprise delegation to the Russian university. The parties discussed the format of the future center and agreed to strengthen cooperation in training engineers for operation and maintenance of mining equipment.

At the meeting with the academic staff and postgraduate students of the university, Aleksandr Botvinnik, Assistant Director General for Information Technologies at BelAZ, said: “Our vehicles operate at the deposits of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly, in Apatity, Kovdorsky GOK and many other Russian quarries and mines. We supply our products to Kazakhstan, South-East Asian countries, Africa and do are best to enter the U.S. market. BelAZ haulers with the 130t payload capacity are viewed the best in the world, as we offer our customers several modifications of them. Some of them, for example, are designed for operation in severe climatic conditions, while others have increased cross-country ability. This allows us to occupy 88% of the global market.”

Yuri Khomich, a member of the Board of Directors of Avtotekhinmash (the official dealer of BelAZ), focused attention on promising developments. Among them are gas-engine haulers, which are in demand in remote areas; traction battery powered trucks and robotic vehicles controlled by an operator from the office.

“BelAZ haul trucks are known all over the world and have gained a reputation of reliability even in the harshest conditions. Nevertheless, it is a complex technology which requires special knowledge from the people working with it. That is why we want to develop a site in St. Petersburg to provide training sessions for students and advanced training courses for consumers of our products, and develop innovations. The choice of the mining university has not been made by chance. It is our strategic partner, which has long been engaged not only in training young specialists, but also in enhancing professional skills of qualified engineers,” said Yuri Khomich.

“By systematically implementing the roadmap of partner educational projects, BelAZ has been developing fruitful cooperation with leading technical universities of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine on joint training of specialists in operation of mining equipment in the mining industry and improving the quality of education,” the press service of the company said.