Chelyabenergosbyt, supplier of Chelyabinsk, cut off electricity in the administration building and some pipelines of the local water supplier in regional Miass due to agreement violations. As the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative, the water supplier of Miass has not been paying the bills for a while and does not comply with the precious agreements concerning their debts. By February 1, 2006 the water supplier had come to owe Chelyabenergosbyt over 19 million RUR.

Mechel Bank JSC made more services available via plastic card. It is now possible to pay your mobile phone bills (if your operator is Megafon, MTS, Utel, Beeline, Corbina, Motiv, Yenisey Telecom), pay for the television subscription (for Cosmos TV, NTV+, Comcor, TV AKADO) or the Internet service (for MTU-Intel STREAM) and put money into your WEBMONEY and Yandex-money accounts using Mechel Bank plastic card. One can also check how much money one has in one’s account as well as to print out the account statement. There are nine Mechel ATMs available altogether.

Ural Interregional Department of Russian Federal Property Fund announced the results of a public auction to which Uraldrevproekt JSC, local research enterprise, share holding had been previously put up. The holding comprised 25.1% of the company’s authorized capital. There were 4260 common shares offered, the state serial number being 62-1п-699 and face value coming to 0.05 RUR. The opening bid was declared as 7,620,000 RUR; the share holding was bought at 4, 572, 000 RUR.

Says Koltsovo airport spokesperson Yulia Fedotova: ‘Siberia Airlines applied for a permission to perform Yekaterinburg-Moscow flights via our airport in the end of 2005. Yet in mid-January 2006 Koltsovo decided to refuse them the slots they needed.’ Ms Fedotova explained that the arrival of one more carrier onto Moscow-bound market would hardly be expedient. Koltsovo airport specialists had estimated that 250,998 people traveled from Yekaterinburg to Moscow via 3,290 flights performed by Ural Airlines, Aeroflot, Transaero using TU-154, TU-134, IL-86, Airbus 320, and Boeing 737. 2, 921 flights

According to the spokesperson for the Federal Financial Markets Service, the additional allotment issue of uncertificated registered common shares of Zvezda Winery JSC, Yekaterinburg was registered on January 31, 2006. The corresponding document states that the emitting company should allot 490 million uncertificated registered common shares with a par value of 0.1 RUR each. The total value of the issue comprises 49 million RUR. The state serial number is 1-01-32085-D-001D.

Chelaybinskiy Tsinkoviy Zavod JSC, zinc plant of Chelyabinsk, produced 116,336 tons of zinc and zinc-based alloys in 2005, which signifies a 23% decrease compared to the previous year’s 151,974 tons, the company’s spokesperson Mikhail Bendyak said to UrBC representative. Despite a fall in production, the company’s sales profits grew by 19% compared to 2004 (3,997,000,000 RUR) and thus reached the point of 4,770,000,000 RUR in 2005. Over 70% of the zinc produced by the company was distributed on the home market. The plant intends to produce 130,000 tons if zinc in 2006.

An extraordinary general meeting is to be held at Kombinat Stroitelnikh Konstruktsiy JSC, structural unit producer of Chelyabinsk, on February 28, 2006. The items on the agenda include the amendments and additions to the company’s Charter, the possible early termination of powers of Members of the company Board and the election of the new Board of Directors.

Sibur-Russian Tyres holding (set up as part of Sibur Holding JSC on January 1, 2006) summed up its achievements in 2005. Uralshina Ltd., Yekaterinburg-placed holding member, produced 2,031,000 tyres of all kinds, including car tyres. According to the company’s spokesperson, there were 1,065,000 car tyres, 286,000 truck tires, and 73,000 agricultural tyres produced altogether. The plant also started the Increasing Tyre Output within Plant Specialization investment project in 2005. 55,000,000 RUR of investments were used in 2005. The projected total amount of investments comes to 292,600,000

Chelyabenergosbyt JSC, electricity supplier, set up the Bankrupt Business Cooperation Project aimed at coordinating all the services dealing with electricity consumers as well as at preventing the long-terms arrears. The local bankrupt or nearly bankrupt companies owe Chelyabenergosbyt JSC 32 million RUR. Ninety more debtors were added to the list in 2005 alone, and the company’s losses occasioned by the bankruptcies were five times as big in 2005 as they were in 2004. The major debtor happens to be the hardware plant of Minyar that owes the company 16.7 million RUR. To make matters worse,

Yuzhno-Uralsky armaturno-izolyatorny zavod JSC (Yuzhno-Uralsk producer of reinforcement and insulators, YuAIZ) was visited by specialists of a representative company in mid-January. This company is going to present the production of YuAIZ on the Spanish market. Among the other guests were the representatives of Spanish certification center that is going to test customizability of YuAIZ insulators for Spanish power engineers. The visit was preceded by YuAIZ Technical Director Vladimir Golovin visiting Spain. Mr Golovin contacted various companies engaged in transmission facilities building in

According to the company’s spokesperson, BN-600 power-generating unit of Beloyarskaya nuclear power plant produced the rated output in January 2006. The electricity-generation schedule was complied with. There weren’t any limit or safety violations of any kind, and the rare gas activity breakthrough in January comprised 0.17% of the upper limit. The radiation level in the town of Zarechniy and the power plant site was not any bigger than usual and fluctuated between 5.5 and 5 microroentgen per hour, which is believed to be typical of Russia. The corresponding figures for Beloyarskoye

Ural Federal District Court of Arbitration declined the suit of Chelyabinsk Region Federal Antimonopoly Service and Aeroflot Airlines against Chelyabinskoye Aviapredpriyatiye JSC, Chelyabinsk airport owner, acting Director of Chelyabinsk Region Federal Antimonopoly Service Anna Koslova said to UrBC representative. ‘Our next step is presenting the suit at the Russian Federation Supreme Court of Arbitration,’ Ms Koslova said. The airport owner was sued after it had been decided at the meeting of Chelyabinsk Region Federal Antimonopoly Service Management Committee to classify the company’s

Chelyabisnkgorgas JSC, natural gas supplier, sold 131 tons of bottled condensed gas at cut and controlled prices in 2005. According to the company’s spokesperson, Governor of Chelyabinsk Region declared that people living in private houses without a gas network connection could buy bottled condensed gas at a reduced price. This price was 198 RUR per cylinder in the end of 2005, which was 52 RUR less expensive than the market price. Besides, over 1,500 residents who enjoy the right to buying privileges used this right to buy gas at half-price or even get it free of charge. This year

The extraordinary general meeting of Tagilvodka JSC shareholders was adjourned with the decision to use the company’s undisposed profits left over from the previous years (22,066,019 RUR) to raise their authorized capital. The capital is expected to reach the point of 51,072,000 RUR through the additional measure of increasing the face value of the company’s shares, which will give them 28,980,444.99 RUR of money to add up to the authorized capital. It is now possible to convert 1 uncertificated registered common share with a par value of 1 RUR to 1 uncertificated registered common share with

Central factory laboratory workers of Ufaleinickel JSC (nickel producer of Ufaley, Chelyabinsk Region) began experimental-industrial processing of nickel carbonate. Central factory laboratory engineers designed and tested in vitro a flowsheet of processing nickel carbonate yielding certain amounts of nickel salts, reports PR-department of the company to UrBC representative. Some positive results were achieved. After considering these results, a special meeting of the company’s management came up with the decision to perform a full-scale experimental-industrial checkout in the

Vladimir Dmitriev, former owner of Pyaterochka chain stores in Yekaterinburg which were bought by Pyaterochka Holding in the summer of 2005, disputes the technicalities of the transaction, says Pyaterochka press secretary. The claim is based on the ‘papers that were faultily processed at the local tax inspectorate.’ The plaintiff and his family members had laid the total of five claims but only one of them was complied with by the court. Pyaterochka is planning to appeal in April. It is specifically emphasized that the plaintiff’s demands are not aimed at the denunciation of the agreement,

Andrey Parhomchuk has been appointed Vice Sales and Purchase President of Mechel JSC, metallurgical enterprise of Chelyabinsk. His new responsibilities consist in developing the home and foreign markets for the goods produced at the mining and metallurgical enterprises belonging to Mechel JSC as well as to improve sales. Mr Parhomchuk had been Director of Metal Production Sales Department (part of Sales and Purchase Department) throughout June 2004 to January 2006. Mr Parhomchuk is also a former director of the company’s subsidiary in Beloretsk and Deputy Sales GD of Mechel firm and thus

The structuring of OGK-3 JSC in the capacity of a large operational company and a single legal entity will have been completed within two months, Member of RAO UES Board and OGK-3 Chairman Alexander Krikunov announced at the general shareholder meeting on January 31, 2006. Thus, the company will have become the full assignee in what concerns all kinds of rights and responsibilities as well as debtors and debtees of Yuzhouralskaya, Kostromskaya, Pechorskaya, Cherepetskaya, Kharanorskaya, and Gusinooserskaya State District Power Plants. The meeting was adjourned with the decision to register

According to the spokesperson for Sputnik travel agency, the number of tourists traveling to Austria on holidays seems to be decreasing. Tourism Director Marina Bondar says that there was a dramatic increase in people willing to fly to Austria during the winter holiday season, and these tourists did not come across any visa problems. ‘We had no difficulty getting Austrian visas,’ Ms Bondar said. It has already become known, however, that Austria introduced stricter visa requirements in mid-January, and Russian tour operators now have to produce the originals of their Austrian colleagues’

‘The mission term of the former consul is over,’ the spokesperson for Bulgarian Consulate in Yekaterinburg Svetlana Maslova said to UrBC representative. It was explained that the mission term lasted for three years. ‘The name of the new consul is Vasiliy K. Tsvetanov,’ Ms Maslova said.