March 6, 2015. The number of claims Sverdlovsk Region residents laid against insurance companies rose by 43% last year, Chairman of Sverdlovsk Region Court Alexander Dementiev said at a press conference today. Dementiev explained most of the civil suits involving insurers had to do with third-party liability car insurance payments. In 2014, courts made insurance companies pay their plaintiffs 730m RUR altogether. Besides, the number of civil suits relating to unpaid housing bills went up by 30%in 2014. Sverdlovsk Region residents were obliged to pay a total of 1.3bn RUR worth of debts. In

March 6, 2015. The cost of life-saving medications at Sverdlovsk Region’s pharmacies rose by 4.3% since the start of the year, while other drugs became 7.9% more expensive, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policy Department refers to Health Minister Arkadiy Belyavsky as saying. ‘An analysis of local prices indicates that these grew most for the least expensive medications in the under-fifty-rubles range. For example, the price of the widely popular antibacterial drug ceftriaxone rose from 17.25 RUR to 21.1 RUR per bottle (up 12.3%); the maximum retail price for the medicine was set

March 6, 2015. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) sold 20% more pipes in the last quarter of 2014 compared with Q3’14: the figure was 702,000,000 kg thanks to betters sales of weldless OCTGs and line pipes on the home market occasioned by growing seasonal demand. The company’s weldless OCTG sales rose by 12% compared with the previous quarter, TMK’s press service reports. Welded pipe sales increased by 11% compared with the third quarter of 2015 and reached 534,000,000 kg thanks to better LDP sales on the domestic market and better welded OCTG sales in the United States. Overall pipe sales rose

March 6, 2015. ChTPZ Group’s educational project called the Future of White Metallurgy and its charity theatre festival for children called Snezhnost won awards from the Social Projects Fund and were declared Russia’s best ones. The Fund’s annual Russia’s Best Social Projects Contest was set up to support the Russian Government’s strategy on improving social policy through public, private, and society’s partnerships. The Future of White Metallurgy aims to ensure an inflow of highly skilled young workers onto the country’s metallurgical plants; the project took off in 2011 thanks to the

March 6,2015. Omsktransmash (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) has saved 18m RUR after the lean manufacturing principles were introduced at the plant, the corporation’s press service reports. The company started switching to lean production in January 2014, and positive outcomes could be observed in early 2015. The money thus obtained was directed to meet the plant’s various needs. Lean manufacturing rests on the 5S system that is a basic, implementable way of rationally organizing one’s working space and working process. Out of the five steps of the 5S approach, namely,