‘The accusations related to an explosion at Evraz Group’s Vysokogorskiy Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise’s Yestyuninskaya mine will have to be faced by the administrator of the underground on-site storage. I am not going to mention his name for the sake of investigative purposes. The man was fired after the criminal proceedings began and is now in his own custody, with a travel restriction imposed,’ Chief Assistant to the Head of Sverdlovsk Region Investigative Committee under the General Prosecutor’s Office’s Investigative Department Alexander Shulga announced at a press conference

‘Following the tragic accident at Raspadskaya mine in Kemerov Region, Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities, the State Labor Inspectorate’s local division, and the regional division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) checked the local mining enterprises for compliance with the safety regulations. The inspections resulted in finding numerous instances of legal offenses,’ Prosecutor of Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities department of surveillance over law-compliance in the fields of the environment, transportation,

The public prosecution authorities of Tyumen’s Central District placed all the papers necessary to consider the criminal lawsuit involving a 46-year-old businesswoman with the court. The defendant is charged with fraud, the authorities report. The inquest team believes that between October 2005 and November 2007, the suspect persuaded two of her employees and five acquaintances to take out bank loans and to hand the money over to her so that she could develop her passenger motor transportation business. She deluded her (female) victims into believing that she would pay off the loans herself.

Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Association placed a complaint with Deputy Head of Russian Federation Government Igor Sechin regarding Severstal raising its product prices, RBC daily reports. Uralvagonzavod explains it is unhappy with the sky-high prices set by the metallurgical enterprise. At the beginning of the month, Uralvagonzavod and Severstal signed an agreement valid for thirty days, which meant the former agreed to a nearly 30% price increase. In return, Severstal promised to raise their delivery volumes by 50%. Now Uralvagonzavod claims it only agreed to the new price

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service is to consider the case involving OOO Lotos II; the defendant is charged with violating Article 22 of the Federal Advertising Act through distribution of unlawful Heineken beer ads, the Service’s press officer Marina Yusupova reports. ‘Yekaterinburg parents committee placed its claim against OOO Lotos II with Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service. The committee is concerned about the illegitimate placement of Heineken beer advertisements above the entrance to Shtab bar, that is, within fifty meters of

Once the heating season of fall/winter 2009/2010 has been successfully lived through, Reftinskaya state district power plant (the Sverdlovsk Region-based asset of Enel OGK-5) launched a full-scale overhaul campaign in order to get ready for the next winter. The power plant provides electric power to over 40% of Sverdlovsk Region’s consumers and partially caters for some neighboring regions as well. Every year, all of the station’s power-generating units undergo maintenance procedures, medium maintenance procedures, or total overhauls, depending on their technical condition.

On June 17, 2010, Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Vinnichenko is going to visit Yekaterinburg’s newest Academic district. He will be accompanied by Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin and Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy. During the visit, the officials will be presented with a report on the way the district’s quarter 5 is being built. They will also pay a visit to a kindergarten, a school under construction, quarter 2 (currently under construction as well), and the law-enforcement agencies’ headquarters.

Starting July 5, 2010, Ural Airlines is going to operate new flights from Novosibirsk, Krasnodar, and Vladivostok. The flights will be operated using the European concern’s Airbus А320 aircraft according to the following timetable: Novosibirsk-Krasnodar flight will be available every Tuesday; Krasnodar-Novosibirsk flight will be offered every Monday; Novosibirsk-Vladivostok flight will be operated on Tuesdays; Vladivostok-Novosibirsk flight will be operated every Tuesday; Krasnodar-Vladivostok flight will be available on Mondays; Vladivostok-Krasnodar flight will be offered on Tuesdays.

The head of Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) profile division Olga Naumova resigned of her own accord recently. The former senior-level manager from NLMK’s Production Directorate Alexander Burayev has been appointed to succeed her in the position. Alexander Burayev is going to supervise the development of Nizhneserginskiy metal goods plant, Ural precision alloys plant, Kaluga-based scientific & production electro-metallurgical plant, the companies belonging to Vtorchermet NLMK Production Association, and a number of other enterprises that comprise NLMK’s profile division.

OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) underwent a certification audit procedure last week; the audit touched upon the production of some earlier certified goods and the produce of the company’s plate mill 5000. The inspection was carried out by the auditors from Germany-based TUV NORD; they tested MMK’s hot-rolled profile, coiled, and flat stock made of EN 10025-2 construction steels for compliance with the European Directive 89/106/ЕС for building materials. They also tested some flat and coiled AD 2000-W0 tubing products for compliance with the European Directive 97/23/ЕС for

The international rating agency demoted the International Industrial Bank’s long-term and short-term contractor credit ratings from ВВ-/В to В-/С. At the same time, both ratings were placed on the CreditWatch list with Negative rating outlook. ‘This demotion has to do with the bank’s very vulnerable liquidity status, the company’s increased risk of debt refinancing, and our concerns over the bank’s ability to save enough money to pay off its large-scale loans whose repayment dates are approaching. One such loan is a ?200m Eurobond one that is to be redeemed on July 6, 2010,’ says Standard

Bank Severnaya Kazna (the asset of Alfa-Bank) published a report on the changes among its stockholders recently. According to the bank’s release as of June 3, 2010, Cyprus-based Vallaur Limited is no longer a shareholder of the bank, with its share dropping from 10.00333% to 0%, Kommersant refers to the bank as saying. At the same time, Alfa-Bank raised its share in the authorized capital of the bank it had once put to a financial recovery procedure from 85% to 95%.

Madura Holding Limited informed OAO Uralkaliy that the holding carved out 53.2% of its share capital in favor of Kaliha Finance Limited (Kaliha), Aerellia Investments Limited (Aerellia), and Becounioco Holdings Limited (Becounioco) on June 11, 2010; the three companies are jointly referred to as customers. The beneficiary owners of Kaliha, Aerellia, and Becounioco are Suleiman Kerimov, Alexander Nesis, and Filaret Galchev, respectively. During the equity carve-out, the biggest 25% shareholding was acquired by Kaliha. Now Madura Holding, the company of Uralkaliy founder Dmitriy Rybolovlev,

‘Neither the Russian budget nor that of the Russian Railways can possibly cover the expenses related to a high-speed Yekaterinburg-Moscow train in the next five years or so,’ Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways for Passenger Travel Sergey Nekh announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘The existing railways can’t handle the pressure of a train traveling at 160 to 260 kilometers per hour, so we’ll need a new railway for it. This railway will have its specifications and complications, especially given the fact that the Perm direction is already overloaded with freight carriages,’

Ural Airlines has finalized its summertime timetable on the flights from Yekaterinburg to the popular holiday destinations in Russia and the CIS. For one, the summer flight to Simferopol has been operated since the beginning of June 2010. For three months, the flight will be operated on an A320 airplane three times a week, that is, every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. In addition, the airline is planning to offer its customers a number of flights to the south of Russia: Yekaterinburg-Sochi flight will be operated daily throughout the entire summer and until early fall; Yekaterinburg-Anapa

The Russian Federation Ministry for Industry and Trade announced the winners of Russia’s Best Exporter of the Year 2009 contest. The contest is held by the Ministry on a yearly basis and is a part of the state industrial export support program. It has been held for the 13th time this year, with the participants (coming from sixteen basic industrial branches) competing in categories like the Branch’s Best Russian Exporter, the Branch’s Best Russian Exporter to the CIS, and the Branch’s Most Dynamically Developing Russian Exporter. The applications were considered by the Ministry’s Foreign

The international rating agency confirmed OOO Home Credit & Finance Bank’s long-term and short-term contractor credit ratings at B+ and B, respectively. The Rating Outlook is still Negative. ‘The fact that we affirmed the ratings means we believe Home Credit & Finance Bank’s commercial activity indicators went up and its financial development indicators have remained stable. We also feel the bank managed to keep up with high market capitalization,’ Standard & Poor's credit analyst Viktor Nikolskiy reports. At the same time, the trying conditions of working on Russia’s highly

‘The Greater Yekaterinburg project will help the local towns to fight unemployment. We all know that people who have lost their jobs during the recession are now coming to the capital of the Urals, Yekaterinburg, in search of work. In fact, the delinquency statistics available can serve as the circumstantial evidence of my claim: according to these data, 50% of local offenders are actually not Yekaterinburg dwellers,’ Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Ural branch Institute of Economics Alexander Tatarkin said to UrBC reporters. Now the project provides for the merger of

The Russian Federation Ministry for Regional Development came up with the results of its monthly report on the socioeconomic and finance & banking situation in Russia’s federal constituencies in January-April 2010. The data used were valid as of May 28, 2010. In terms of socioeconomic development, Sverdlovsk Region exceeded the average levels for the country on the whole. Still, the region did not make it to the list of seven Russian territories where things were considerably better than the average levels for the country on the whole, whereas its two neighbors in Ural Federal District –

OOO Torgoviy Dvor now has a number of new owners: European-Asian Company has recently bought a 25% shareholding in the business. According to the company’s official statement, the shareholding was estimated at 9.5 million RUR.