Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) has recently re-launched its No.4 sintering plant. Prior to this re-launch, the plant had to be temporarily halted in November 2008 because of decreasing production output. According to the company’s PR Department, one of the plant’s key challenges lay in keeping as many of the sintering plant’s workers as possible busy and employed during the stoppage. To do this, the plant had to switch to a five-shift working mode, with a portion of workers transferred to No.2 and No.3 sintering plants, the sulfur unit, and the concentrate storage area. In the

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Federal Antimonopoly Service is to consider the claim laid against MRSK Ural (the interregional network distribution company) on January 27, 2009. The company is suspected of violating Article 10 (part 1) of the Federal Bill 135 on Protection of Competition (as of July 26, 2006). The alleged violation consisted in making Uralelectromed reconcile with inconvenient terms of an agreement on technological connection (to be provided by MRSK Ural). Then, the defendant is suspected of inflicting upon Uralelectromed the similarly inconvenient terms of maintenance

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development recently launched a new, special deposit type known as Business Rhythm, the bank’s press officer reports. The beauty of the new deposit offer lies in the bank’s readiness to let the customer take the money back before the end of the deposit period; what is more, even if a customer wants to cash the deposit early, the interest rates will still look very appealing, which makes managing one’s finances more flexible and more profitable. The deposit period comes to anything between 100 and 367 days. In case a customer chooses to open a deposit for

The construction of 3D Club (the apartment block) in Yekaterinburg will have to be slowed down in comparison with last summer’s rate because of the current economic crisis. Meteorite (Meteorit & Co Ltd), the general contractor, says the main reason for this is the lack of investment from the investor, that is, 3D Club construction cooperative. The cooperative Board suggested that the future apartment owners might do without the complete remodeling of their rooms so that the money saved could be used to cover the underground parking lot. The Board explained that the complete remodeling was

Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Vinnichenko held a meeting on the efficiency of crisis-defying measures in the economy’s real sector in Chelyabinsk. The meeting was attended by Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin and heads and representatives of Ural Federal District’s largest enterprises. ‘The problem of most industrial branches is their poor technical capacity. 49.8% of Ural Federal District’s basic machinery is worn out, while the Russian average figures come to 45.3%. The available analytical data make it obvious that

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (ChTPZ Group’s largest tube and pipe manufacturers) supplied their consumers with 1.509 million tons of tubular goods in the twelve months of 2008, which falls short of the figures for a year earlier (that is, 1.892 million tons) by 20%. The decrease in the output volume mainly has to do with smaller demand for large-diameter pipes in the industrial, machine-building, construction, and energy sectors in the last quarter of 2008. The decrease in demand was, in its turn, brought about by the rapidly unfolding financial and economic