Some new managing directors have recently been appointed to Evraz Group’s Urals-based enterprises – Vysokogorskiy Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (VGOK) and Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (KGOK, aka Vanadium). The new managers were introduced to their personnel by Evraz Vice President and Head of Ore Division Konstantin Lagutin. VGOK will now be run by former head of the enterprise’s Lebyazhinskiy sintering plant Andrei Kuznetsov. The company’s ex-Managing Director Sergey Napolskikh has been appointed the top executive of Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing

The air traffic controllers of Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport are still on hunger strike. ‘They went on hunger strike on April 11, 2010 in order to support their colleagues in Rostov-on-Don and to make sure the management makes some changes to the collective agreement. As it is, the agreement contains some violations of the Labor Code,’ the trade unions’ lawyer Elena Goncharova said to a UrBC reporter. ‘The top executives of Ural Air Navigation, Transport Ministry, the federal aviation services, and trade union representatives met in Moscow on April 6, 2010. Unfortunately, this meeting

Calculated in accordance with the IAS, the net profit of United Company RUSAL amounted to $821m last year, compared with $5.98bn worth of net profit in the year 2008, the company’s official release states. RUSAL’s revenues went down by 48% in the year 2009 and came to $8.16bn. The company says this had to do with the decreasing aluminum prices and shrinking sales volumes. The enterprise’s aluminum output was 11% smaller in the year 2009 than in the year 2008 and only reached 3.9 million tons as the production at the least profitable facilities had to be cut back on. Then, the alumina output

The number of Russian travel agents might drop by 15% by the start of the summer season 2010, Kommersant claims. Judging by the data provided by Rostourism, 649 Russian Federation-based companies were unable to renew their financial guarantees recently. These are mostly small provincial operators that cannot afford to pay the high insurance fees of 280,000 to 300,000 RUR a year. 342 out of these 649 travel agents mainly deal in providing services to foreigners coming to Russia, 74 companies sell tours abroad to Russian citizens, and 233 agents do both. The operators were supposed to have

The stockholders of Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation decided to let its two major production assets Uralmashzavod and ORMETO-YUMZ develop outside the joint venture framework. The two newly independent companies are to focus on further specialization and the implementation of their own investment programs. The corporation was set up in 2007. The founders now explain that the market opportunities three years ago made it necessary for Uralmashzavod and ORMETO-YUMZ to unite in terms of produce marketing, production distribution, and capital investment.