Moscow, July 18. During the first half of 2019, the domestic aluminium industry continued to implement new projects aimed at increasing domestic consumption, import substitution and production of high-value-added products, despite a number of difficulties with both the regulatory framework and outdated production processing facilities.
One of the most notable events for the industry was the approval of the Aluminium Pedestrian Bridges Code developed on the initiative of the Aluminium Association. The signing of the document cancels the existing restrictions on the use of aluminium in bridge construction, which will significantly optimise and accelerate the process of construction of new pedestrian bridges from aluminium. According to the estimates of the Aluminium Association, 100–110 new modern and beautiful aluminium pedestrian crossings may appear in Russia within the next 4–5 years. Work is in progress to cancel regulatory restrictions for the construction of road and railway bridges.
The aluminium industry opens up new areas of activity — in June, successful tests of the bimetallic contact rail (aluminium/steel) have been conducted in the metro of St. Petersburg. The tests open up the opportunities for expanding the use of aluminium in the metro.
Since, due to the geographical features, 15 constituent entities of the Russian Federation can not be efficiently reached using ground vehicles, and 28 thousand settlements are inaccessible for ground vehicles, an important event not only for the industry, but also for the entire transport infrastructure of Russia was the development of a new product — portable helipads made of aluminium airfield plates. This is a fundamentally new product for our country, which allows delivering and assembling runways and helipads in hard-to-reach regions in the shortest possible time. These technologies are extremely important since 32.6 million people live in remote areas in 34 constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
Achievements and promising projects of the industry were presented at the exhibition 'Era of Winged Metal' organised by the Aluminium Association in the State Duma. In particular, projects in the field of bridge construction, energy, construction, automobile production, transport, consumer goods, alumochemistry and other promising areas were presented. The work of the industry and the exhibition were highly appreciated by the State Duma management, relevant Committees and party faction leaders.
'The aluminium industry of Russia continues its consistent and confident development. We managed to overcome the period of uncertainty, and the response to all the difficulties was the increase in domestic consumption of aluminium, the opening of new production facilities, the launch of new products that were not previously produced in our country. I am sure, this year will consolidate these trends,' said Valentin Trishchenko, the Chairman of the Aluminium Association.