Maintenance Director of Ural and Volga Interregional Network Company Eduard Shapochkin awarded ChelyabEnergo, the local heat and electricity provider, with certificate of preparedness for fall and winter today. This is an official proof of the fact that the company is ready for winter. Getting the certificate is seen as a kind of an annual exam aimed at estimating the quality of repair campaign. This year, it was preceded by a lot of serious work that was divided into two stages. First, committees made up of experts from Ural and Volga Interregional Network Company, local experts, and

Federal Antimonopoly Service in Sverdlovsk Region is now considering the case of BBH, the alcohol-producing company, concerning violations of beer advertising legislation. According to the spokesperson for Advertising Law Compliance and Unfair Competition Surveillance Department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in Sverdlovsk Region, the charge involves Article 22 (part II, paragraph 6) of the Advertising Law: the company allegedly placed its billboards at fewer than 100 meters away from the building of school 134 in Komsomolskaya St. in July 2006. ‘The Service has recently drawn up a

Regional division of Federal Financial Market Service registered the decision and the report about an issue of ordinary registered paperless shares by Industrial Urals-Polar Urals Corporation. The issue consists of 30,000 shares with face value of 1,000 RUR each. The state serial number is 1-01-32851-D; the shares are to be offered to the company’s incorporators. The issue was registered on September 22, 2006.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, UralTransBank gave 23% fewer short-term loans (for a term of up to 30 days) to sole traders in January-September 2006. The figure has gone down from 44,096,000 RUR to 33,765,000 RUR over the nine months of 2006.

Chairman of United Machine Building Works Alexei Matveev and General Director of United Machine Building Works Evgeniy Sergeev presented their company’s strategy to mass media in the course of a business breakfast that took place yesterday. Mr Matveev told the reporters about the corporate strategy aimed at developing the business through expanding the assets it has in terms of the activities core to the business; the other points have to do with diversification of business and allying with the leading companies in the field. According to the Chairman, the company is now at the new

Evrazruda (part of Evraz Group) assessed its success in terms of raising the raw stuff and final product quality in the third quarter of 2006. All of the company’s ore mining enterprises managed to meet the demands concerning the iron content in the ore and ore concentrate they extract; Abagurskiy and Myndybashskiy processing plants met the demands concerning the quality of agglomerate and commercial concentrate. Besides, all of the company divisions were able to reduce the iron content in the final tailings. Technicians of Gurievskiy subsidiary, who had been working on raising the

Environmental prosecution bodies of Chelyabinsk Region took criminal action following the fracture of TON (Tuymazy-Omsk-Novosibirsk) oil-trunk pipeline in Satkinskiy District, their spokesperson said to UrBC representative. The accident occured during construction works on October 20-23, 2006. The diameter of the pipeline comes to 720 millimeters, the pressure amounts to 20 atm. The accident involves an oil spill, with the threat of poisoning the River Bolshaya Satka. The estimated scale of the spill comes to 400 cubic meters, with the contaminated area coming to 5,500 square meters,

The regional deputies have approved of the special program targeted at helping risk-group families and children in 2007; the project was originally proposed by the President of Magnesite Group Sergey Korostelev. The new program is expected to enhance the efficiency of the regional family-friendly programs as well programs aimed at preventing family instability and helping unsupervised children, minors, and so-called social orphans. The program is partly based on its successful counterpart in Satkinskiy municipal district. It is supposed to involve creation of a multi-faceted system of

Net profit of Trubodetal, the tube and tube parts maker, went down by 11.698% in the third quarter of 2006. According to the company’s report, this was caused by a decrease in sales and increase in expenses not related to sales. The figure has dropped from 76,788,000 RUR to 67,805,000 RUR within a quarter of the year.

Vanadium Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise of Kachkanar (part of Evraz Group) assessed the performance of Test Tower (installed in the processing plant) over four months. The Test Tower determines the fineness and the iron content of ore and operates around the clock. The tests are taken every ten minutes, fully covering the ore flow; every two hours, ore samples are transferred to the central lab where the experts carry out their full chemical analysis. The data are then filed into the company’s computer database. This facility allows the enterprise to perform online and obtain reliable

The investments placed by the natural persons onto the deposits of Sverdlovsk Gubersnkiy Bank grew by over 80% in October 2006 compared with the beginning of the year. The amount of money in natural person accounts came to more than 2.2bn RUR on October 1, 2006 (compared with 1.19bn on January 1, 2006). This figure places Sverdlovsk Gubersnkiy Bank ahead of many other regional banks. The bank’s Deposit and Payment System Administration reports that this growth has to do primarily with offering the clients the conditions they like; the range of deposits can satisfy the needs of very different

‘The reduction of gasoline prices at the filling stations of YekaterinburgNefteProduct occurred on Tuesday, October 24. No. 80 now costs 15.5 RUR per litre (a .5 RUR drop), No. 92 costs 18.3 RUR (1.2 RUR drop), No. 98 comes to 20.9 RUR (a decrease of 1 RUR), No. 96 is sold at 19.5 RUR (a drop of 1 RUR). Diesel fuel is sold at 17.4 RUR (a drop of .6 RUR),’ the company’s Marketing Director Vladimir Drugov said to UrBC representative. ‘Cheaper gas was brought about by the decrease in oil prices and by the market opportunities at the moment; another factor is seasonal fluctuations affecting the

The Federal Antimonopoly Service in Sverdlovsk Region started a lawsuit against SverdlovEnergoSbyt concerning the alleged violation of antimonopoly legislation, reports the spokesperson for TENCOM Group. The spokesperson says that some of the consumers living in Novouralsk are supplied with electricity at prices that do not coincided with the tariff menu designed by the Regional Power Engineering Committee. Besides, SverdlovEnergoSbyt, the supplier, provides wrongful information on the tariffs of an independent supplier Novouralsk Power Supplier Ltd. through mass media and letters it sends to

Over 1,500 graduates of Technological Institute of Nizhniy Tagil (subsidiary of Ural State Technical University) are currently employed by Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil (part of Evraz Group). The enterprise has been supporting the college for many years as part of its social partnership program. In the middle of October 2006 (on the eve of the foundation day of the Institute), thirty-four best students in their final years of study received Evraz fellowships. These fellowships amount to 9,000 RUR per term (this is the highest figure among all local colleges). The nominees

Ural Airlines began the international safety auditing procedures. So far, the company’s employees have undergone IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) preparatory training program facilitated by the expert of a British auditing firm Captain Colin Penny and started the gap-analysis. To date, Aeroflot has remained the only Russian company holding IOSA certificate, reports the spokesperson for Ural Airlines.

On October 26, 2006, Chelyabinsk Region’s first innovation exhibition called South Ural State University - Flight and the Second Regional Exhibition of Innovations and Investments will welcome their visitors. The exhibitions will last for two days. First Deputy Governor Vladimir Dyatlov will conduct the first opening ceremony. The opening of the Second Regional Exhibition of Innovations and Investments will take place in SouthUralExpo, the exhibition center. The exhibition will present over 50 innovation projects and scientific and engineering ideas designed by representatives of 11 colleges,

‘Following the administrative trial, Building Materials Group Ltd. will have to pay the fine of 35,000 RUR and submit nine system units with pirated software worth over 130,000 RUR,’ reported the spokesperson for the Public Prosecutor of Sverdlovsk Region. ‘The preliminary investigation brought to light that Building Materials Group was using illegal copies of Microsof software, so now the case has been transferred to court. The charge concerned Article 7.12 (part 1) of Russian Administrative Code: infringement of copyright and neighboring rights) and was looked into by the Justice of the

Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of Industry, Power Engineering and Science have approved of the supply limits schedule for the fall/winter 2006/2007 proposed by SverdlovEnergo, the local supplier, reports the spokesperson for the company. Designing and supervising the compliance with the schedule are some of the steps aimed at providing reliable electricity supply by the guaranteeing supplier of Sverdlovsk Region. The schedules are drawn up annually by the working team consisting of the company’s representatives. The schedules were approved of by the regional dispatching service and by Sverdlovsk

The company appointed special people (department directors and chief management experts) who will now be in charge of each type of its activity liable to licensing. These people will be responsible for renewing the licenses before the deadline, getting the new ones promptly, and making sure that all licensing requirements and provisos are complied with. This committee of people in charge will, in its turn, be monitored by the company’s Managing Director. At the moment, the IT Department is preparing to renew its license entitling the enterprise to provide local telephone communication,

Since the beginning of the year, about 500 mangers, experts and workers from fifteen departments of Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil (part of Evraz Group) have successfully undergone certification. The certification is used by the company’s management to make decisions about awards, promotions and further professional training of the employees. So far, eighty-five people proved their right to get promotions, pay rises and becoming alternative manager candidates. 170 people were recommended to get additional training. The employees were assessed by an ad hoc committee