On July 31, 2006, the first session of Chelyabinsk Region Court of Arbitration concerning the claim laid by Starwood Trading Ltd.of the UK against Metallurgical Works of Zlatoust JSC will take place, the spokesperson for Sovetnik Ltd., the local firm representing the interests of the British company, said to UrBC representative. The claim was placed with the court on May 10, 2006. According to the plaintiff, the works of Zlatoust had been supplying them with faulty rolled metal from December 2004 to April 2005; there were four shipments of low-quality rolled metal altogether, and the

On July 3, 2006, Leonid Kuznetsov was appointed Head of Ural Regional Center of Svyas-Bank Joint Stock Commercial Bank. Mr Kuznetsov will have to deal with the implementation of the Bank’s network developing policies as well as with the control over and providing for the realization of the business plans of the company’s subsidiaries in Chelyabinsk and Yekaerinburg, reports the bank’s spokesperson. Prior to this appointment, Mr Kuznetsov was employed in the capacity of Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District

Tube Metallurgical Company JSC held the annual general meeting on June 30, 2006. The shareholders elected the Board of Directors, the inspection committee, and company’s Auditor, Ernst and Young Ltd. They also approved of the company’s annual report and of the accounting report and decided to declare the dividend of .54222 RUR per ordinary share for 2005. The new Board Members are Adrian Cobb, Muhadin Eskindarov, Petr Golitsin, Andrey Kaplunov, Igor Khmelevskiy, Josef Maru, Sergey Papin, Dmitriy Pumpyanskiy, Alexander Shiryaev, and Geoffrey Townsend. Dmitriy Pumpyanskiy was elected Chairman.

Sverdlovsk Region Federal Antimonopoly Service imposed fines of 1,000 minimum wages on Arshin Ltd., Encore Ltd., and Dveri & Okna Ltd., all located in the town of Samara. The total worth of the three fines comes to 300,000 RUR, reports the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Federal Antimonopoly Service. The enterprises were fined for failing to place a petition with Sverdlovsk Region Federal Antimonopoly Service asking to buy a certain voting share holding of the authorized capital of UralBurMash JSC. These share holdings made up over 20% of the company’s voting stock, and, given that

Beloyarskaya nuclear power station summed up the results of its activity in June 2006. According to their spokesperson, there weren’t recorded any safety or limit violations, and the rare gas activity breakthrough in June comprised less than .01% of the upper limit. The radiation level in the town of Zarechniy and the power plant site was not any bigger than usual and fluctuated between 5 microroentgen per hour in the village of Beloyarskiy and 6.5 microroentgen per hour in the villages of Rezhik and Dubrovo. This is believed to be typical of Russia, with its standard range of 4 to 20

Mechel JSC, an ore mining and metallurgical company, held the annual general meeting on July 3, 2006, the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative. The shareholders declared the dividend of 12.73 RUR per registered paperless share for 2005. The total amount of money meant for the payment of dividends should reach the point of 5.3 billion RUR ($195.7m). According to the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles of the United States, the dividends make up 50% of the company’s net profit. The dividends will have been paid on account by no later than December 31, 2006. The attendees also

Andrew Welch, Chairman of Aston Group, visited Sverdlovsk Region, reports the spokesperson for the Ministry for International and Foreign Economic Relations of Sverdlovsk Region. The Russian-American joint venture might go for a new investment project in Yekaterinburg worth $300m, Mr Welch announced in the course of the meeting with Viktor Koksharov, Minister for International and Foreign Economic Relations of Sverdlovsk Region. The new construction project is aimed at building new dwellings in Yekaterinburg and is, in fact, the first attempt of the U.S. Government to finance the construction

A massive technological blast was performed at the floor of -240 meter of Yuzhnaya mine of Vysokogorskiy ore mining and processing enterprise JSC (part of Evraz Group). This resulted in beating over 420,000 tons of ore, which should provide the miners with production for more than five months. It took the company’s technicians a week to charge the boreholes; they used around 1 ton of explosives altogether. On the day of the blasting operation, all the equipment (including the lifts, the pumping, and the ventilation) was put out of operation, and all the workers had to leave the lower floors.