Chelyabinsk Region Department of Emergencies received a message about the accident involving the section of an oil-trunk pipeline within five kilometers of the village of Berdyasush on October 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. As the spokesperson for Chelyabinsk Region Department of Emergencies said to UrBC representative, the accident was caused by the soil caving that resulted in decapsulation of the weld seam of TOH-2 oil-trunk pipeline.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin met Head of State Duma Environmental Committee Vladimir Grachev yesterday. Mr Grachev updated the Governor on what the committee had done in terms of Techenskiy tandem reservoir system and gave Mr Sumin the official report signed by thirty-two academicians, professors, and nuclear safety experts. They came to the conclusion that Mayak had been damaging the local environment for decades, which resulted in the issue becoming more than just one region’s problem. This is the question of state importance that needs to be approached seriously and dealt with

Metallurgical Works of Zlatoust assessed its success in nine months of 2006. The company produced 439,000 tons of steel and 310,442 tons of rolled metal and shipped 308,732 tons of metal goods in September 2006. It also sold more than 6bn RUR worth of goods in January-September 2006, the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative.

TGK-9 JSC, the regional power supplier, is going to attract 50bn RUR within the framework of its long-term investment program. The funds are to support the company’s production investments. These plans were disclosed by the GD of TGK-9 JSC Andrey Makarov. Now the company’s management is going to launch construction of Novobogoslovskaya heat-electric generating plant and of State District Power Plant in Nizhneturinsky District. These stations are expected to supply the demand for electricity in Serovo-Bogoslovsky and Nizhneturinsky Districts of Sverdlovsk Region. Mr Makarov also indicated that

Dust system renovation of two furnaces in the open-hearth plant of Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhny Tagil JSC (part of Evraz Group) has been completed recently. The overhaul of No. 5 furnace main environmental safety unit took 90 days and included replacement of the main system equipment and of the exhaust-heat boiler. No. 15 furnace gas-cleaning system has also undergone a technical reconstruction within a scheduled maintenance works that lasted 40 days. Due to the opportune repairs, the dust systems of two open-hearth furnaces are now operating at full capacity and comply with all

Vanadium Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise of Kachkanar (part of Evraz Group) has started replacing the outdated equipment in its crushing plant. The new equipment systems for secondary and fine crushing sections manufactured by Sandvik of Sweden are to replace the older crushers produced in Germany that have already served the company for 20 years. The new equipment will change the ore pretreatment technology essentially. The secondary crushing process will be preceded with a preparatory screen sizing. The two fine crushers will be replaced by one new unit. The installation of the new

The top-management of Ural Turbine Works CJSC (part of Renova Group) is going to rearrange control of the enterprise on a new hi-tech basis. The corporate re-equipment program includes introduction of an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system. ‘Although introducing the system is rather laborious, the experience of many Russian and foreign manufacturers has shown that such systems prove to be efficient indeed. Setting up an integrated information space, they support on-line management of the basic assets and ensure transparency of planning through optimization of different processes. As a

Open pit personnel of Vysokogorsky Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise JSC (part of Evraz Group) have celebrated 50th anniversary of launching limestone extraction. During the grand meeting dedicated to the anniversary, the company’s managing director Vladimir Bobrov presented 20 members of the open pit staff with awards for their longstanding conscientious work. To date, the enterprise supplies with limestone two of Evraz Group members, namely, Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhny Tagil and Vanadium Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise of Kachkanar. The consumers are completely

According to RosBusinessConsulting agency, CHELINDBANK JSC ranks 47th among the top-100 Russian banks in terms of branch development in 2006. The rating was compiled according to the following principles: RBC specialists extracted 100 banks with the biggest numbers of subsidiary offices, representative offices and cashier’s offices located outside front offices from the list of 200 biggest Russian banks as of July 1, 2006. To date, CHELINDBANK branch network includes 29 subsidiary offices located in Chelyabinsk Region and in Yekaterinburg, 2 representative offices in other regions of Russia,

Ural Airlines are getting ready to sign its first online interline agreement with Hahn Air Lines GmbH, the German carrier; this is part of the general project aimed at introducing e-ticketing practices in Yekaterinburg. The two parties are currently looking at all overlapping areas of their services; the next stage of negotiations will concern full automation of all their procedures. An interline agreement is particularly difficult to handle online due to legal technicalities that demand that all the areas of cooperation must be indicated in the agreement in detail, which is necessary to make

Evrazruda JSC (Russian ore maker and part of Evraz Group) summed up the results of a competition held in the third quarter of 2006 among the company’s departments and employees. Abakanskiy subsidiary, with its 100% completion of the plan and 104.9% completion of targeted labour productivity figures, was considered the best. Gurievskiy subsidiary became first among mines and plants (its employees fully complied with the plan and over-performed in terms of labour productivity (3.1% better than the target figures). The working teams of the two subsidiaries as well as those who won personal

The opening bid for 9,627 ordinary registered paperless shares of the company (property of Russian Federation) is 20,050,000 RUR. They are sold by Sverdlovsk Region subsidiary of Russian Federal Property Fund. The applicants are eligible to apply from October 19 to November 20, 2006. The auction will be held on November 24, 2006.

Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil (part of Evraz Group) is trying to improve its energy supply monitoring using an updated software version. This program was devised by the experts from the electric lab and those from the company’s IT center. The main idea behind this software is to provide full monitoring of energy consumption not only in terms of the company as a whole but also in terms of certain shops and areas in real time mode. A computer-aided control board allows for a prompt response in each case of over-spending in every shop and department. Thanks to the experts,

Vysokogorskiy Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise (part of Evraz Group) launches a long-term planning campaign among its managers. The plans must be targeted at cutting the company’s production costs. One project, proffered by the Head of Heat-and-Power Engineering Shop, involves changing the way the boilers operate, and this project has already proved to save quite a bit of money in terms of electricity bills. The managerial long-term planning practice was introduced in 2006 at the initiative of the Personnel Director. These plans are designed in order to stimulate initiative, production

Equipment located in the crushing shop of ore mining and processing enterprise of Kachkanar (Vanadium JSC, part of Evraz Group) undergoes scheduled repair. The company’s repair technicians have completed repairs and examination of four conveyor tracts and of receiving bunkers located in the small- and medium-scale crushing shops. This will be followed by the repair of the other sections of the shops. According to the plan, the crushing shop will have 16 kinds of its equipment repaired in October, without any interruption in the production process, reports the spokesperson for Evraz Group.

Metallurgical Works of Zlatoust summed up its success in September 2006. The company produced 49,696 tons of steel and 36,533 tons of rolled metal. The works shipped 36,092 tons of metal goods, the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative.

Magnesite Industrial Complex (part of Magnesite Group) is going to launch production of caustic magnesite in November 2006. This will make the company Russia’s first producer of the product, which has so far been only produced abroad (in China, Greece, and Spain). Magnesite Group has invested 245 million RUR in R&D, equipment restoration and upgrading and technological design. The annual output of caustic magnesite is expected at 90,000 tons. ‘Nowadays, these are mainly the large European enterprises involved in chemical, building, and agricultural industries that actually buy calcined

Zinc Plant of Chelyabinsk published a memo concerning the issuer’s intention to offer 70% of the upcoming initial public offering in GDR format at London Stock Exchange and offer 30% of the IPO at Russian Trading System, another bourse; the memo was published in Britain yesterday, reports Kommersant newspaper. According to the spokesperson for the plant, the company is planning to offer both the owners’ shares and the extra issue coming to 6.4% of the authorized capital; all shares were registered with the Federal Financial Market Service on October 12, 2006, when the issuer offered 325,173

Teyskiy subsidiary of Evrazruda (ore maker and part of Evraz Group) is fully prepared to launch the first stage of Izykhgoskoye deposit development, scheduled for early November. This first stage includes Yuzhniy mine and a number of roads, mains, a transformer substation, and a 36-km-long highway leading from the mine to the grinding and processing plant. The road will only be put into operation at the end of the year, but technical vehicles can already use it okay. After it receives four large Volvo dumpers, Teyskiy will start transporting ore from the deposit using this route. The

SverdlovEnergo, the regional power and electricity supplier, has begun the final stage of equipment checkups aimed at examining how well it is prepared for the winter, reports the company’s spokesperson. Fifteen substations of Talitsk Electrical Networks are being given scheduled repair, including the multi-faceted upgrading of Poklevskaya 110/10 kilowatt substation; four 110/10 kilowatt power transformers have also been fixed. The whole project has required 27.8m RUR of investments over the last nine months. Starting October 23, Talitsk Electrical Networks will also be examined by an ad hoc