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Currently there is no uniform method for the economic evaluation of construction and exploitation costs of underground structures that would incorporate not only construction costs, but also costs associated with possible accidents and damage during exploitation. At the same time, we believe that in such cases costs should be evaluated in advance, because these situations often result in catastrophes with incredibly high liquidation costs. In this paper our method for evaluation of costs of underground construction is proposed. In the light of the high safety standards being set for construction and exploitation of underground structures a need for evaluation of exploitation costs is justified. We propose that investment decisions should be made based not only on possible economic income and costs, but also on probable economic losses during the underground structure expatiation. An economic mathematical model for calculating probable economic effect of investment decisions has been developed for this approach. Limitations for this model have been determined based on probable construction time, design work costs, underground construction costs, underground construction repair costs, and costs of maintaining a high security profile while the structure is in use. Applying this method to evaluation of underground construction investment project costs will allow for minimization of probable economic loss during the exploitation of that structure, and will raise overall quality of investment decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the results of increasingly intensive development of subsurface resources is a global change in ecological and geodynamic safety of the natural environment. It is known that intensive extraction of minerals has led to the change on the subsoil and, as a consequence, to the redistribution of the deformed state of very significant volumes of rock mass with adverse consequences for the environment. For this reason, in many deposit fields geodynamic monitoring is actively carried out using ground-based technologies. However, with the development of space technologies, along with terrestrial methods, can be seen the widespread use of radar imagery. This article presents the results of the application of ground and space methods of geodetic monitoring of deformation of the earth's surface in oil production conditions. The processed 33 ENVISAT ASAR images are used as an example of space technology and the GPS survey and levelling data are given as the terrestrial method. A comparative analysis of economic efficiency between terrestrial and space technologies is made using the example of several fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kazakhstan's joint stock company Volkovgeologija is one of the principal uranium ore producers. It has a very large fleet of drilling rigs for that purpose. About 70 % of the well's geological log are represented with highly dispersible clays, which originate caving while being penetrated by wells. Caving becomes a cause of various grave down-the-hall complications. To prevent them, special inhibiting drilling muds are to be used. Many formulas of such muds have been developed by various companies, but the tests, some of them had carried out on the deposit, had been all unsuccessful, for two reasons: Their offers did not take into account local specifics, and their products were too costly. A formula of an adequate inhibiting mud and methods of its application have been worked out by Kazakh Science and Technology University's Well Drilling Technology Department. Industrial tests have demonstrated absence of caving and drastic drop in the costs. Basing upon a formula of inhibiting mud, which is currently in use in oil well drilling industry, a new formula has been worked out, intended specifically for conditions of uranium ore producing wells. The industrial tests have proven, that the proposed formula of the inhibiting mud practically eliminates caving. A technology has been worked out for repeated application of exhausted inhibiting muds with returning their parameters to pre planned values. The cost of the inhibiting mud does not enhance the well's cost by more, than 11 %. The economic effect is made up out of elimination of time losses and costs of: repeated loggings; well-bore up and down working for balling control; down-the-hole break-downs; repeated well drilling due to well path deviation. However the exact value of economic effect has not been so far established, in view of absence of reliable statistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]