Verkhnekamsk Potash Company (a member of Acron Group) and other Perm Krai companies met with the Regional Engineering Centre to discuss improving industrial cooperation. The Regional Engineering Centre was established by the Perm Krai Ministry of Industry and Trade in 2014 to support local industry.

Verkhnekamsk Potash Company (VPC) is pursuing a special investment project in the region to develop the Talitsky mine. Under a previously signed roadmap on cooperation with the industrial complex of the Kama region, the Company is considering proposals from regional organisations that develop high-end technological solutions.

During the meeting, local companies presented their solutions for monitoring groundwater within the mining plot at the Talitsky area of Verkhnekamsk salt deposit. Groundwater is a renewable resource, but its renewal process is much slower than its consumption, which makes the monitoring of all water use a top priority for subsoil users.

With this issue in mind, the Regional Engineering Centre invited three Perm companies (Permgiprovodkhoz, Kama Research Institute for Integrated Studies of Deep and Ultradeep Wells (KamNIIKIGS), and Georesource-Perm) and the hydrogeodynamic modelling laboratory at Perm State National Research University (PGNIU) to participate in the meeting. The organisations spoke about groundwater monitoring and shared their experience in this area.

After the meeting, the attendees agreed that VPC will consider the Perm companies’ proposals in greater detail and decide how to move forward.

Director of the Regional Engineering Centre Mikhail Ponomarev noted that this was the fourth roadmap meeting with VPC’s technical specialists. ‘These meetings provide an opportunity for local enterprises to get to know a potential major customer, to talk about their competencies, and show examples of their work’, he explained.