UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 09, 2018. Russia’s largest coke-chemical enterprise, EVRAZ Holding’s West Siberian Integrated Metallurgical Works (ZSMK) got founded fifty-five years ago this month. To celebrate the occasion, a sculpture portraying a coke-maker was cast at the plant’s foundry department. The statue weighs around 10,000 kg and is, together with the bas-relief pieces, six meters tall. According to the company press service, EVRAZ ZSMK makes more than 3,500,000,000 kg of coke every year and thus fully covers the plant’s furnace department’s needs. The plant also puts out the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 09, 2018. The telecommunications giant MegaFon’s engineers and IT experts made a presentation on the benefits digitalization has to offer to local industries for Yekaterinburg’s business community at the recent Digital Technologies: New Business Opportunities Forum, the company’s press service reports. ‘These days, a company’s competitiveness depends greatly on how digitalized they are. We can see the businesses’ demand for digital solutions rising by around 15% a year. The Internet of Things is one of the key concepts the corporations are interested in: the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 09, 2018. Ural Airlines are now offering their customers reduced-price tickets for flights from Moscow to destinations in Germany, the air carrier’s press service reports. Prices for Moscow-Frankfurt-Moscow flight start from RUR 10,999 (round trip). The flights get operated on weekdays. Prices for Moscow-Munich-Moscow flights start from RUR 9,950 (round trip). The flights get operated twice a week. You can book the tickets on October 8-16, 2018 (for flights to be operated between October 15 and November 30, 2018). ‘Munich looks incredibly different in different

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, October 09, 2018. ChelPipe Group, A.V. Yakovlev Chelyabinsk State Industrial/Humanitarian Technical School, and Russia’s Defense Ministry signed a cooperation agreement to make sure the school alumni who completed ChelPipe Group’s Future of White-Coated Metallurgy Corporate Training Program can serve their obligatory army term close to home, in MoD’s Regiment 14 in the Southern Urals. This year’s first ten alumni will be taking their oath as soon as late 2018, the company press service says. The trilateral agreement stemmed from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s respective

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 8, 2018. The number of people using MegaFon.Musyka (unlimited access to Yandex.Musyka, BOOM, and Zvuk) has gone up by seven times since the start of the year, MegaFon Ural’s press service reports. Typically, the service is more popular with men who use Android smartphones and women who use iOS-based ones. Among the options available are music apps, of which BOOM is currently the most frequent choice. A regular MegaFon.Musyka user tunes in to over two hundred songs/music pieces a day on average and spends nearly eight hours listening to them. Russian tunes are

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 8, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) now purchases all of its equipment repair-related services through the electronic platform B2B-Center. According to the company’s press service, the idea is to ensure auction transparency, automate the processing of potential contractors’ applications, and expand the plant’s customer base. ‘We had B2B-Center’s options range and functionality tested successfully by trying out more than a hundred purchases. There are specific technicalities involved in every type of equipment repair, so it’s important to choose the

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 8, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is hosting a meeting with experts from the Competitive Purchases Leader Award’s community board for the first time this year, even though the plant has taken part in and won prizes at the all-Russian professional competition every year since the award got set up six years ago, MMK’s Information & PR Department reports. ‘The independent experts used to arrive at their decisions in absentia when the award was first established in 2012. This year, MMK’s management suggested that the experts on the community board

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 8, 2018. Ural Airlines are introducing a new flight from Nizhnevartovsk, Russia to Ganja, Azerbaijan on October 30, 2018; the direct flights will be operated every Tuesday, the air carrier’s press service reports. Flight U6 2501: Departure (Nizhnevartovsk): 9:35 AM — Arrival (Ganja): 1:10 PM; Flight U6 2502: Departure (Ganja): 3:00 PM — Arrival (Nizhnevartovsk): 8:10 PM; Flight duration: four hours ten minutes. Prices start from RUR 12,236 (one way; one piece of luggage under 23 kg, one piece of cabin luggage under 5 kg, a hot meal, and all fees included). The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 8, 2018. The converter shop at EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) got launched fifty-five years ago this month. The shop has put out 140,000,000,000 kg of steel and 70,000,000,000 kg of steel ingots since, NTMK’s press service reports. The plant coordinated a number of festive events to celebrate the special date. A ‘jubilee' melting session took place at Converter 1; the melting process got supervised by Sverdlovsk Region’s Minister for Industry & Science Sergey Perestoronin, EVRAZ Vice President and Head of EVRAZ Holding

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, October 5, 2018. You Only Live Once, a creative project on industrial safety developed by ChelPipe Group and one of the leading creative agencies Instinct (BBDO Group), won three important awards. The project won bronze as Film (Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)/Corporate Image) at the Ad Black Sea 2018 International Festival in Batumi, Georgia, in September 2018. Additionally, third prizes were given to it in Design & Craft — Motion Graphics and Print & Outdoor (Poster Advertising) at Art Directors Club Russia Awards 2018, ChelPipe Group’s press service

UrBC, Moscow, October 5, 2018. Russia’s Finance Ministry has RUR 475.5bn allocated for purchasing foreign currency between October 5 and November 7, the ministry reports. ‘The overall amount of money directed to foreign currency purchases comes to RUR 475.7bn. The purchasing transactions will take place on October 5-November 7, 2018, which means the daily spending will come to RUR 20.7bn,’ the Finance Ministry says. In the meantime, the national budget is expected to get RUR 479.7bn in extra O&G revenues in October 2018, as the actual oil prices are currently higher than predicted. Now

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, October 5, 2018. Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant (ChelPipe) signed agreements to annul all of the share lending contracts ChelPipe and ChelPipe Group’s Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ) had with their creditors Gazprombank and Bank VTB in September 2018, the company press service reports. ChelPipe Group therefore has no encumbrance on its loan book at the moment. ‘The company keeps working to improve its performance and control debt, and the creditor banks chose to approach the case very cooperatively, so we can now switch to borrowing money without additional security. We

UrBC, Moscow, October 5, 2018. 19% out of 2.5 million businesses operating in Russia finished last year off in the red, Russia’s Federal Tax Service’s data indicate. Another 27% made no profits in the financial year 2017. Now the Federal Tax Service’s report covered companies that did not go into liquidation officially but in actuality stopped operating.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 5, 2018. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) is now launching its new charity project within a larger-scale Children Believe in Miracles Program; the new project provides a social worker/curator for every child living in a foster home/orphanage to help them with mastering professional skills, the bank’s press service reports. The goal is to help children in foster care do a try-out for their dream job with the help of a curator who already has the required qualifications and can share their personal success story, guide a child through their

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 4, 2018. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) increased interest rates on deposits offered to private customers by 0.25% to 0.5% a year on October 1, the bank’s press service reports. The interest rate on Growing Interest Deposit went up to 8% a year (deposit period: 210 days; the interest gets paid into the overall amount every thirty days; you can add more money (any amount) to the deposit any time you like; the minimum you need to deposit is RUR 10,000). The offer holds for customers who didn’t have an active deposit or a savings

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 4, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (KGOK) was founded fifty-five years ago this month; a number of festive events got coordinated at the plant to celebrate the occasion. According to the company press service, a museum site got opened at the Main Quarry. The exhibition features mining equipment and samples of minerals collected from the nearby mines of Gusevogorskoye Deposit. Among other things, you can see a BelAZ truck wheel, a pair of rail wheels, and the scoop of EKG 10 excavator unit there. The museum is now located just

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 4, 2018. Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems’ Western Siberia branch is about to complete its preparations for the fall and winter of 2018/2019. According to the company’s press service, their seasonal repairs program is now 98% complete. RUR 1.7bn got allocated for the repairs (including preparations for peak workload times). Additionally, the company rescue and engineering teams cleared up more than 3,300 hectares of electric mains passageways and repaired 329 km of 110-kilowatt mains. 366 power transformer units, 624 switchgear units, and 467

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, October 4, 2018. First Freight Company’s Chelyabinsk subsidiary coordinated its first tech drill at Nickel Washing & Steaming Station involving the station staff and employees of Russian Railways (acceptance inspectors and shunting masters working at Nickel Rail Station). The drill focused on how to detect and prevent leaks at tank-type railcars, the company’s press service reports. Head of Nickel Washing & Steaming Station Oleg Shindyaev commented on the importance of doing joint drills to prevent tank leakage. ‘The timing for this workshop is simply perfect:

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 4, 2018. Russian customers will have to pay a duty on shipments sent to them from abroad that are worth more than €500. The new regulation comes into effect in 2019, Ural Customs Division’s press service reports. Every Russian national can still receive as many international shipments as they like before December 31, 2018, as long as their total weight stays under 31 kg and their total value stays under €1,000. In case these limits get exceeded, a duty (€4 per 1 kg or 30% of the shipments’ worth) will have to be paid. ‘We can see Russians ordering increasingly

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 3, 2018. The European blue-collar jobs championship EuroSkills 2018 is now over in Budapest. Alexander Arapov and Maxim Aksenov, who study at Magnitogorsk Polytechnic School, both won silver in Mechatronics, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) press service reports. ‘The Russian national team proved truly triumphant at EuroSkills 2018. Our team was No.1 in the team competition, just like two years ago in Gothenburg, Sweden. In Budapest this time, however, we won both in terms of score and in terms of the number of medals. Russia’s national team got more gold