Evraz Group is going to spend $225m to maintain its share in Raspadskaya mine. Raspadskaya Coal Company, the joint proprietor of the mine, is to hand Mezhdurechenskaya Coal Company – 96 and Raspadsky open pit over to the mine. Thus Raspadskaya Coal Company is going to pay for the additional issue of Raspadskaya mine shares. In its turn, Evraz Group is going to pay for the issue in cash at the rate of $225m. Evraz Group will also provide a short-term financial guarantee at the rate of $300m to Raspadskaya Coal Company, the company’s press-release says.

Monetka-Finance Ltd has completed placement of the first series of interest-bearing certificated bonds that mature in 1,092 days since the offering date. The state registration number of the issue is 4-01-36133-R dd April 11, 2006. The placement is registered by the Bank of Russia. The face value of a single bond is 1,000 RUR. By May 18, 2006, 1m bonds had already been placed. Thus, the total nominal value of the placed bonds came to 1bn RUR.

Utair Airline is to deliver heavy and bulky loads to places of oil and gas fields development under a yearly contract with Airborne Energy Solutions Ltd. of Canada. The contract provides for delivery of loads by Mi-26 helicopter, mainly as an external load. ‘Utair Mi-26 helicopter entered the North-American airspace for the first time yesterday in order to operate within Northwest Territories of Canada. The helicopter started from Tyumen and reached its destination within 6 days, flying over Eastern Siberia, Chukot Peninsula and Alaska. Now it is deployed at the town of Yellowknife and has

Beloyarskaya power plant is completing the scheduled equipment inspection and preparing to start the BN-600 power-generating unit. The unit was shut down on March 24, 2006 in order to carry the inspection out and to get the unit refueled. Since then, the reactor of BN-600 was refueled and one of its six sodium-sodium heat exchangers was replaced in order to investigate it within the framework of the Program for Support of Extension of BN-600 Projected Service Life. The scheduled routine maintenance operations, including installation of a modern field system at the electric generator No. 4,

In 2005, Mechel JSC experienced a setback in production of its prime metallurgical products against the figures for 2004. The steel production, for instance, decreased by 5% down to 5.899m tons; the cast iron production decreased by 14% down to 4.6m tons; the coke production decreased by 12% down to 2.589m tons. This was reported by PR-department of Mechel JSC to UrBC representative.

Within 2005, the total amount of tax assessments of Tube Metallurgical Company JSC and of its integrated enterprises came to 10.37bn RUR, which exceeds the corresponding figures for 2004 by 72%. The tax assessments of Seversky Tube Works JSC and Sinarsky Tube Works JSC came to 1.78bn RUR and 2.02bn RUR, respectively. Within 2005, the assessments of Tube Metallurgical Company JSC and of its integrated enterprises to all kinds of state and municipal budgets also went up. The assessments to the federal budget amounted to 5.64bn RUR, the total assessments to the regional and municipal budgets

Mechel JSC has recently made its financial results for 2005 public. According to the company’s PRP-deparmtent, their net profit decreased by 29.8% (down to $381,180,000); the gross operating income decreased by 31.3% (down to $515,728,000). Net avails increased by 4.6% (up to $3.8bn against $3.64bn in 2004). EBITDA decreased by 20% and came to $726.25m against $907.73m. ‘The year 2005 was hard for Mechel because of higher raw materials costs and complicated price patterns that had a negative influence on the profitability of our company,’ indicated Alexey Ivanushkin, CEO of Mechel JSC.