One of Estonia’s most prestigious science competitions for upper secondary school students – the Five Schools Competition – took place for the 55th time, with the Ida-Viru team participating for the eighth time with VKG’s support.

The ‘Bring your child to work!’ initiative gave children an opportunity to take a closer look at their parents’ work and working environment. They were given an overview of what goes on in the world of work and by the end of the day they understood why different jobs are necessary and that every worker is important.

The Vision Zero – Safety First! information day for the representatives of contractors was aimed at conveying the need for a preventive approach to incidents and increasing the efficiency of a dialogue on the topic of occupational safety.

We opened an exhibition dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the shale oil industry, covering the birth and development of the shale oil industry and the city of Kohtla-Järve as well as the twists and turns and technological progress of the shale oil industry and changes in people’s working conditions and the city over 95 years.

We stopped purchasing external raw material and therefore conserved our 1,000 gas generator which operated on external oil shale purchased by the Group.

The disagreements between Saudi Arabia and Russia with regard to limiting the production volumes of crude oil took oil prices into freefall. The world’s oil markets reacted to the crisis. The rapid spread of COVID-19 led to the establishment of an emergency situation in Estonia and the preparation of a crisis plan in the Group. In addition to the requirements established under the emergency situation as well as other precautionary measures, we took additional measures to protect our employees and core production.

For a month, VKG Energia was Estonia’s largest thermal power plant with controlled capacity, producing 40,782 MWh of electricity which made up 15.5% of the 262,496 MWh produced in Estonia (previously 4.5%).

In the framework of introducing the new resource planning software MS D365 BC, the first part of the new solution – the salary and personnel accounting module – was implemented.

The joint goal of the pan-Group competition ‘Moving for Your Health!’ was 10,000 km. All together, we managed to traverse 13,400 km in 30 days.

Final theses defended! Our 11 bright, hard-working and brave colleagues celebrated their progress via a digital transmission – their hard work finally paid off and they proudly held up their professional higher education or master’s diplomas from the TalTech Viru College.

After a registration process that took nearly five years, we gained the right to enter the US market with our unique oil shale chemistry product Honeyol™ which is used in the tyre and leather industries.

The preliminary feasibility study of the pre-refining project confirmed that shale oil is suitable for producing standard ship fuels. However, the changes that took place in the international market during the year tilted the scaled against the planned pre-refining plant and in the benefit of the existing oil industry. With that positive knowledge, we have decided to suspend the process of developing the pre-refining plant for now on due to the market and economic situation.

We are helping to clean up residual pollution – under the leadership of the Ministry of the Environment, we started eliminating the residual waste left over from the 1930s in the territory of the former tyre factory at Kohtla-Nõmme (in the territory of a conveyor of VKG Kaevandused) in the framework of the LIFE IP CleanEST project. In the course of that work, we removed nearly 14,000 m3 of seriously contaminated soil and 100 m3 oil waste. The total cost of the project was 424,322 euros of which VKG contributed 109,801 euros. The hazardous waste collected in the course of the project were deposited in VKG’s landfill.

Viru RMT took a crane to new heights and gained some excellent experience. The subsidiary replaced a WinWinD wind turbine transformer using a Liebherr crane at the height of 100 metres at the Aulepa wind park of renewable energy company Enefit Green.

One of our most beloved traditions celebrated its 20th jubilee in 2020. That is how long ago we first had the idea to start congratulating all our employees’ children who are about to become 1st graders in the last month of summer, a few weeks before the beginning of the school year by throwing them a memorable party and giving them a fully packed orthopaedic school bag. 2020 saw 72 children of our employees, including two pairs of twins, taking their seat at a school desk for the first time.

We registered the first COVID-19 case at the Ojamaa Mine. In order to prevent risks, we reduced the mining volume to 60% for ten working days. Caring for the health of our employees and aiming to prevent the spread of the corona virus to production territories, we started full testing in Group enterprises in cooperation with Synlab.

In 2020, we recognised our honorary miners in an entirely new way – in the conditions of a pandemic. We recognised six hard-working colleagues from the Ojamaa Mine.

The employees of VKG contributed in the framework of the global clean-up day by cleaning the territory of the city of Kohtla-Järve and by planting trees.

A change took place in the management of VKG Logistika: Anton Nõomaa, who had been a member of the Management Board since October 2016, withdrew, and the company continues under the leadership of Ervin Küttis.

As of 1 October, the rates of VKG Elektrivõrgud were changed. Network charges for the clients of VKG Elektrivõrgud were increased by approximately 3.4%. The changes applied equally to all client groups.

The external audits of the quality management systems started in the Group in October and included the re-certification of the existing quality management systems. VKG Kaevandused, VKG Oil, VKG Energia, VKG Elektrivõrgud and VKG Soojus made a transition to the ISO 45001 standard which replaces the former OHSAS 18001.

The most successful and competitive Estonian enterprises were recognised in October. Viru Keemia Grupp and our subsidiary VKG Oil won the 2nd and 3rd place among 403 companies competing in the area of industry and energy.

The sixth Estonian Oil Shale Industry Yearbook was published, prepared by Viru Keemia Grupp, Eesti Energia and Kiviõli Keemiatööstus in cooperation with the Oil Shale Competence Centre.

In the course of introducing the new resource planning software MS D365 BC, the second and main part of the new solution – the financial, warehouse, purchase and production modules and their interfaces were implemented.

Market research company KPMG published the results of their study ‘Estonian National Wealth Created by the Shale Oil Value Chain’, one of the main findings of which was that the production of shale oil can create more than 8 billion euros worth of national wealth in the coming 20 years. The study was commissioned by the Estonian Chemical Industry Association and aimed to determine the impact of the European climate policy on the competitiveness and long-term sustainability of the sector.

As a result of collective agreement negotiations between the VKG enterprises and the Trade Union of Chemists, a new collective agreement was signed for 2021–2022.

In line with our good practice, we prefer supporting the Ida-Viru Central Hospital instead of making hundreds of corporate presents. In 2019, we gave a Christmas present to the maternity department, in 2020 our support went to the paediatric department. Thanks to our support, the time spent in the hospital will be shorter for many newly born babies – the donated money is used for purchasing an additional photo-therapy lamp for treating jaundice in new-born babies.