Chelindbank joint-stock bank celebrated its 16th anniversary on October 16, 2006. According to the spokesperson for the bank, Chelindbank holds a leading position on the regional financial service market. It steadily hits the Russian top-100 and the regional top-10 bank ratings in terms of assets. The priority directions of the bank’s development are lending and retail business. Within the past months of 2006, the bank’s loan portfolio has gone up by 34% and reached the point of 10.6bn RUR. The volume of natural person accounts amounted to 6.7bn RUR, with the number of Visa cards issued by

Ural Airlines assessed their success in nine months of 2006; overall, the results look better than in January-September 2005. Thus, the passenger turnover went up by 13% and came to 2,106,361,000 passenger-kilometers. The carrier has serviced 803,213 people since the beginning of the year, which exceeds the figures for the nine months of 2005 by 13%. This figure includes 466,308 passengers on domestic flights (13% more than in January-September 2005), 55,638 passengers flying to the countries of the NIS (14% more than in January-September 2005), 69,708 people using regular international

Sinarskiy Pipe Works (aka SinTZ, part of Pipe Metallurgical Company), came up with the preliminary assessment of its success in nine months of 2006. The company shipped 438,600 tons of steel tubes in January-September, reports the spokesperson for Pipe Metallurgical Company.

UralmashSpetsstal Ltd., part of Spetsstall Ltd. belonging to United Machine Building Works, has been negotiating with Arcelor Mittal for strategic cooperation. The two companies are hoping to sign a three-year agreement for the supply of 3,000 tons of hot and cold rolled rolls annually. UralmashSpetsstal Ltd. currently has almost 1bn RUR worth of supply contracts, half of which is made up by export ones. The company is planning to increase its export share to 60% next year. It started producing new types of shrouded rolls with enhanced chromium content in 2005; some experts managed to design

Evrazruda JSC (ore maker and part of Evraz Group) have recently acquired three new vehicles: a bulldozer and two automated KamAZ dumpers with the capacity of 13 tons. This was done as part of the technical modernization program. The bulldozer is going to be used in Kazskiy subsidiary, replacing the worn-out T-170 tractor. It is meant for transferring the rock from the grinding and processing plant to the dump pit, for storing crushed rock, and for cleaning up the roads in winter. The dumpers will be employed at Tashtagoslkiy and Gurievskiy subsidiaries; they will deal in freight

TyumenEnergo, the power and electricity supplier of Tyumen Region, has recently undergone winter preparation procedures. The checkup mainly concerned Ishim Electrical Networks and Tobolsk Electrical Networks. Both subsidiaries received special certificates allowing them to operate in the winter of 2006/2007, and similar examinations are to follow in all the regional subsidiaries. The networks are currently being examined by the ad hoc committees consisting of representatives of Ural and Volga Interregional Network Company, TuymenEnergo, Rostechnadzor, and the Department of Emergencies. They

The meeting of interdepartmental committee devoted to relocating the residents of the village of Muslyumovo (Kunashakskiy District, Chelyabinsk Region) located near contaminated River Techa took place on October 11, 2006. The meeting was chaired by First Deputy Governor Vladimir Dyatlov and attended by Igor Konyshev, Counselor to Head of Federal Atomic Power Agency. Mr Konyshev says the governmental provision on financing relocating (600m RUR will be received by Mayak Production Association for them to compensate the villagers for the loss of dwellings situated in the contaminated area) will

The company sold 708,800 tons of tubes, including 367,600 tons of large-diameter ones, in January-September 2006. It shipped 97,200 tons of tubular goods in September 2006, including 50,700 tons of large-diameter tubes.

ChelIndBank of Chelyabinsk and Visa Association conducted Visa sales enhancement training on October 12, 2006. the workshop was attended by the employees from the headquarters and the subsidiaries who deal in servicing natural persons and selling Visa cards. As the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative, the seminar was conducted by Anton Emelyanov of Visa Moscow office, who briefed the participants on effective sales techniques. The attendees looked at the sales model structure, learned the tips for effective trust building, and practiced dealing with difficult situations.

The number of passengers has gone up by 11% since the beginning of the year (compared to January-September 2005) and came to 1,340,394 people. The number of flights offered went up by 7.4% and reached the figure of 9,771 flights, with the most popular destinations so far being Antalia and Hurghada. Koltsovo airport serviced 841,414 passengers on domestic flights (11.1% more than a year earlier), 389,211 international flights (10.7% more), and 109,769 passengers on flights to the countries of the NIS (+12.1%) in January-September 2006. In terms of flights, 7,295 of them were bound for various

A highway meant for transporting ore from Noviy-2 open cast mine at Burlukskoye depository is currently being constructed at Irbinksiy subsidiary of Evrazruda (ore maker and part of Evraz Group). This highway will allow the company to start extracting ore and transfer it to the grinding and processing plant using 55-on BelAZ trucks as well as transfer the overburden material to Noviy-1 mine and fill the emptied spaces with it. The road is filled with the production leftovers such as rock and chippings; everything is being done by the company’s employees, who have already put up 300 meters of

‘The court proceedings having to do with the case of Oksana Schegolkova, the accountant of Sredneuralskiy subsidiary of UralTransBank, were finalized yesterday. Ms Schegolkova was charged with fraud as she had allegedly used her access to the bank’s operation systems to transfer sums of money ranging between 10,000 RUR and 100,000 RUR from the customers’ accounts to the third party accounts,’ Deputy Public Prosecutor of Verkhyaya Pyshma Sergey Kravchuk said to UrBC representative. ‘Ms Schegolkova was not detained as this was considered too much for a pregnant woman – this was her condition at

UralKaliy, potassium maker of Perm Region, decided not to go through with the public offering of its shares at London Stock Exchange. The shareholders feel it is impossible to get the adequate response from the potential investors at present. The decision to offer up to 29% of the company’s authorized capital (that is, no more than 616,073,100 ordinary shares) was initially made at an extraordinary general meeting in August 2006. The Federal Financial Market Service gave the company permission to place up to 29% of its shares abroad on September 21, 2006. The company declared the public

Property of Kopeisk Production Management Producers' Co-operative has been put up to auction. The lot is made up of ChelyabInvestBank share holding (1,749 ordinary shares and 249 preference shares) and the company’s production stock. The opening bid for the shares is 1,998 RUR. The results of the auction will be summed up on October 23, 2006.

Trust Insurance Company is going to hold an extraordinary general meeting on November 3, 2006. The shareholders will have to decide on whether to raise the company’s authorized capital via private placement of ordinary shares, and on how many shares to place. The other points on the agenda cover settling down the price of the placement, the payment format, and the kinds of assets that could be used to pay for the company’s shares.

The final decision as to whether to annul the license allowing Eureka Mining to develop Mikheevskoye field will be made by the Russian Federation Ministry of Natural Resources, which has recently received a complaint from the regional public prosecution bodies that claim the English company do not obey the licensing agreements, First Deputy Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Vladimir Dyatlov announced at a conference. ‘If Eureka Mining tried harder, it would have pretty good chances of keeping the license; yet there are a lot of people willing to develop the deposit more effectively, so the

Four Derrick fine screening units are now being assembled in Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise of Kachkanar (Vanadium JSC, part of Evraz Group); this is part of the program aimed at upgrading the equipment and ore pretreatment technology and at raising the production efficiency. The assembling is being dealt with by the experts of the general contractor; the units are expected to be launched in December 2006. They should raise the quality of ore screening from 34%-42% to 81%-85%, which has been estimated to skip a few third-stage grinding mills. This, it its turn, should result in

Ural Airlines have recently piloted their new Tasting on Board project on Moscow-Yekaterinburg flights. Up to October 2006, economy class passengers were only offered free alcohol on regular international flights, yet now those traveling from Moscow to Yekaterinburg on a Friday night (flight 265 from Domodedovo airport at 10 PM) can have strong drinks if they want to. These passengers will be offered cognac accompanied by an expert’s mini-lecture throughout October. The lecturer will brief them on the differences between cognac and brandy, tips for tasting it and advice on hors d’oeuvres that

Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank assessed its success in nine months of 2006. The bank’s balance sheet total amounted to 8.02bn RUR on October 1, 2006 (compared to 5.45bn on January 1, 2006), its owned capital came to 839,67m RUR (compared to 615.46m RUR on January 1). The net wealth rose by 46.9% and reached the point of 7.71bn RUR (compared to 5.25bn on January 1), the income-earning assets amounted to 5.52bn RUR (an increase of 32.1%). The loan portfolio (commercial loans, discounted bills, interbank loans) went up by 20.6% and came to 3.8bn RUR (compared to 3.15bn on January 1, 2006). The

The Court of Verknyaya Pyshma completed the hearings connected with the criminal suit of accountant of Sredneuralskiy subsidiary of UralTransBank Oksana Schegolkova who was charged with theft and fraud. According to the prosecution, Ms Schegolkova had stolen over 10m RUR from the accounts of the bank’s clients, so they insisted on the maximal penalty of 10 years in prison. This legal action was initiated by the local prosecution bodies at the end of 2005; the charge concerned Part 4 of Article 159 of Russian Criminal Code (large-scale fraud). The documents were placed with the court this