August 24, 2015. Heads of Volzhsky Pipe Plant (a member enterprise of Pipe Metallurgical Company/TMK) technical and quality control departments in TMK’s Russian, European, Middle Eastern, and U.S. divisions met to look at results produced by the set of quality and efficiency enhancement measures taken in the first half of the year, the company press service reports. The company managed to keep up with the metal-spending and product quality targets in the six months of 2015, despite the fact that the target figures are getting stricter by the year. An analysis of the company’s quality

August 24, 2015. MegaFon is going to become the general partner for the Junior Club World Cup hockey games this year. The world’s strongest junior hockey teams will meet in Yekaterinburg, Nizhniy Tagil, and Verkhnyaya Pyshma on August 24-30, so the telecommunications provider is adjusting its equipment settings to make sure it can handle the upcoming enormous amount of phone time and internet traffic, MegaFon’s press service reports. Eight teams from Russia, Finland, Kazakhstan, Byelorussia, United States, Latvia, and Sweden will try to prove the best. Russia will be represented by Chaika

August 24, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court will soon hear a claim laid against Nizhniy Tagil Boiler & Radiator Plant; the claim relates to the defendant’s alleged insolvency, the court states. The claim was laid by OOO UralTechInvest on August 20, 2015. It is not clear at the moment how much money is owed to the creditor. Nizhniy Tagil Boiler & Radiator Plant was built in the mid-fifties and has been producing heating radiators since 1961. The company also makes paints and coatings, concrete goods, and cast iron and steel pipes. According to Sverdlovsk Region Labor &

August 21, 2015. Sredneuralsky Copper-Smelting Plant/SUMZ (a member enterprise of Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company) decided on using a credit line of up to $40m offered by Gazprombank, the company reports. This is, in fact, a working capital loan that the company needs to refinance its other financial obligations, among other things. Under the agreement, Gazprombank is willing to provide the money in national (ruble) as well as foreign (US dollar and Euro) currency.

August 21, 2015. The average monthly pay came to 34,000 RUR in Russia in July, which was, in nominal value, 5% more than one year earlier, Rosstat announced Wednesday. However, the figure actually decreased by 9.2% in real terms when compared to last July and by 8.8% when compared with the start of this year. The population’s actual income went down by 2% against July 2014, Rosstat reports. In fact, the Russians’ income was down by 3.5% in June, by 6.4% in May, by 4% in April, by 1.8% in March, by 1.6% in February, and by 0.8% in January. The real-terms figure shrank by 2.9% in the seven

August 21, 2015. STK, one of Sverdlovsk Region’s heating power suppliers, had to pay 4,074,166 RUR in fines for violating fair competition legislation, the Federal Antimonopoly Service’s Sverdlovsk Region division reports. ‘It was determined that STK had violated Article 10 (Part 1) of the competition protection law by unjustifiably pronouncing a heating power meter obsolete before its lifespan was actually over,’ the division says. The FAS found STK guilty of an administrative offense, with charges based on Article 14.31 (Part 2) of the Russian Federation Administrative Offense Code, and

August 21, 2015. The city council of Sudak, Crimea, was given a new bulldozer by Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant/ChTZ (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation). According to the corporation’s press service, it was decided as early as last year that certain Russian Federation constituencies would be supporting certain Crimean cities, so now the constituencies are helping in every way they can, including equipment supplies. ‘Sverdlovsk Region now supports Sudak. A ChTZ bulldozer was purchased and sent to the Crimea via a dealer company Vigma. The bulldozer has already reached the city by

August 21, 2015. META (a member enterprise of ChTPZ Group) sold 624,000,000 kg of scrap metal in the first half of the year, which was 7% better than a year earlier, when the figure stood at 585,000,000 kg. Out of these, 342,000,000 kg were collected by the company itself and 282,000,000 kg were transit scrap metal, the Group’s press service reports. META was able to sell more since they focused on collecting more scrap metal for Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (a member enterprise of ChTPZ Group as well), since the latter now needs 28%, or 99,000,000 kg more raw stuffs; besides, META’s relations

August 20, 2015. Tickets for the Supreme Hockey League Championship 2015-2016 are already available at Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s Ice Sports Palace in Nizhniy Tagil, the corporation’s press service reports. 4,000 RUR will buy you admission to 25 home games at Sputnik Hockey Club’s arena and a lot of spectacular moments on the ice. Besides, a Hyundai Solaris will be played out among the season ticket holders before New Year’s Eve. Only 600 season tickets are available for purchase at the moment, with another hundred already reserved by the team’s supporter prior to the sales takeoff. Both

August 20, 2015. The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development is no longer a shareholder of Yekaterinburg-based Uraltransabnk, the issuer reports. It is reported that the EBRD sold 62,466,349 of voting shares (25.0000002% of Uraltransbank’s authorized capital) on August 17, 2015. The former owned the shareholding for eleven years all in all. The shares were sold to OOO Sevilon (8.760615%) and Entrepreneurial Activity Development Fund (8.999385%). Fitch, the international rating agency, demoted Uraltransbank’s rating outlook from Stable down to Negative in January 2015. Fitch said

August 20, 2015. The international Russia Arms Expo 2015 will now comprise some business agenda in addition to the show and the exhibition proper; the business meetings will be related to the Russian defense industry’s scientific and technological development in the future, the event coordinators report. More specifically, there will be meetings on the international weaponry market opportunities, development of new kinds of armaments, military and technological cooperation, and finance and investment for the defense industry. The meetings will be contributed to by heads of defense departments

August 20, 2015. Additional pay-for parking lots for 854 cars were introduced in Yekaterinburg recently, Roman Barakovskikh from the city council’s Transport, Traffic, and Road Development Committee said at a briefing. The parking lots are located downtown, between Lenin Ave and Malyshev St, namely, in sections of Mamin Sibiryak St, Krasnoarmeyskaya St, Lunacharsky St, Popov St (Sacco I Vanzetti St to Moskovskaya St), Belinsky St (Kuibyshev St to Dekabristy St), and Malyshev St itself (Belinsky St to Lunacharsky St).

August 20, 2018. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) delivered a set of pipes to LUKOIL Uzbekistan Operating Company (a daughter enterprise of LUKOIL Overseas). The set comprised 88.9х6.45 hydrogen sulphide-resistant compressor pipes made to API 5CT standards with TMK UP FMT premium threaded joints. The goods were made at Sinara Pipe Plant, TMK’s member enterprise. The entire production process was supervised by an independent Swiss Engineering Group as had been agreed upon in the original contract. The pipes are meant for natural Kandym gas condensate fields in Uzbekistan’s Bukhara-Khiva Region

August 19, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region’s private and business electric power users currently owe their power suppliers 5.5bn RUR, 2.5bn RUR out of which stem from electricity bills not paid by the communal housing services and utilities companies. Additionally, individuals and companies owe their heating power and hot water suppliers 6bn RUR, Sverdlovsk Region division of Energosbyt Plus reports. Five local towns’ debt figures have been the highest since April 2015: this is the case with Rezh (over 259m RUR), Artemovsky (103m RUR), Alapayevsk (98m RUR), Kushva (106m RUR), and Krasnouralsk (97m

August 19, 2015. Eterno, a stamp-welded parts manufacturer and a joint venture set up by ChTPZ Group and Rosnano, has been successfully audited for compliance of its quality management system with STO Gazprom 9001-2012 standards, the Group’s press service reports. The audit was carried out by Russian Register. Getting Gazpromsert approval is a proviso a business must meet in order to make its bids in Gazprom’s tenders for companies that deal in design, development, production, and delivery of stamp-welded parts for natural gas and oil pipelines. The auditors gave particularly good feedback on

August 19, 2015. An ATM located at Sberbank branch at 35 Baikalskaya St in Yekaterinburg exploded as a result of a burglary at 3 AM today, the bank’s press service reports. Some of the money got stolen from the blown-up ATM, with some damage done to the branch as well. The exact amount of overall damage isn’t quite clear at the moment. ‘The apartment building where Sberbank branch is located remained intact, with this extremely dangerous burglary fortunately producing no casualties,’ the press service says. This is, in fact, not the first time ATMs have been blown up in Sverdlovsk Region. For

August 19, 2015. Lepse Director-General Gennady Mamayev gave out keys to new apartments at 10 Lepse St to four of the plant’s employees, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. Company housing was offered to Oleg Galiulin from the cold pressing department, Svetlana Savelyeva from the zinc- and paint-coating department, engineer Dmitri Zykov, and deputy head of repairs Alexander Minin. All of them have a reputation for their great production performance, professional skills, a contribution to the plant’s social life, and respect their colleagues have for their expertise. The

August 19, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region proved one of the top five most adamant complainers about the growing food prices: complaints were placed with Russia’s Antimonopoly Service between August 2014 and August 2015, the Service’s website states. Sverdlovsk Region’s residents placed 231 complaints with the Service altogether, with over 8,800 complaints filed in the country on the whole. The greatest number of appeals was recorded in January 2015. Most of the queries were related to growing dairy foods prices (1,300) as well as the price of sugar (1,289), vegetables (970), and fruit (738). The

August 18, 2015. Rosgosstrakh, an insurance company, was sentenced to a 7,000-RUR fine in Yekaterinburg; the company was detected to make its customers buy extra (unnecessary) services, Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) states. It was revealed in the course of an inquiry that a Yekaterinburg resident had come to the insurance company’s office to get the obligatory third-party liability car insurance. The company only agreed to sell the customer the insurance policy if he also bought life insurance for a one-year period (March 22, 2015 to March

August 18, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is going to process Pervouralsk Pipe Mechanical Plant’s insolvency case, the court reports. An application asking to declare the company insolvent was placed with the court by OOO Uralpromenergo on August 13, 2015. The plaintiff’s claims come to 5,625,404 RUR. Pervouralsk Pipe Mechanical Plant was founded in 2006. The company is located in Pervouralsk, Sverdlovsk Region, and deals in production and technological treatment of metal goods.