Vice-president of Ural Regional Currency Exchange (URVB Stock Exchange) Maxim Kostylev has commented on the claim by Tatyana Kolotova, Head of Sverdlovsk Regional Department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service. Ms Kolotova claimed that no exchange was prepared to auction Government Purchases yet. ‘At the moment, Ural Regional Currency Exchange has licenses for auctioneering goods and standard contracts. Our infrastructure embraces complete set of hard- and software for commodity e-exchange. URVB has adopted and confirmed the Rules for Auctioneering in the Section of Commodity Markets. URVB’s

On March 16, 2006, Chelyabenergo JSC, Chelyabinsk Regional electricity Supplier, held a project team meeting concerning charges for connecting to the company’s networks. The meeting was visited by Chelyabinsk Regional and municipal governments’ representatives. According to GD of Chelyabenergo Evgeny Kryuchkov, there is a long felt need for connection charges. Numbers of networked electricity consumers as well as the demand for Chelyabenergo electricity networking have been growing during the last few years. This growth was induced by the general growth of Chelyabinsk Regional economies and

During February 2006, Seversky Trubny Zavod JSC (tube maker of Severka), member of Trubnaya Metallurgicheskaya Kompaniya, shipped over 46,000 tubes to its consumers. Total shipments since January 1, 2006 have exceeded 89,000 items, the spokesperson for Seversky Trubny Zavod said. Within February, the company produced 52,000 tons of steel. The company’s total steel production came to 108,000 tons in January and February 2006.

Board of Directors of Chelyabinsky Trikotazh appointed the annual stockholders meeting for May 5, 2006. The agenda includes discussing the results of the company’s financial and economic activities during 2005, and of the dividend non-payment question. The stockholders will also elect the company’s Board of Directors as well as the members of auditing commission.

Chelyabinskaya Ugolnaya Kompaniya JSC, a coal maker, extracted 229.200 tonnes of commercial coal. Kapitalnaya and Korkinskaya mines excelled the plan by 21% and 14.3%, respectively. The daylighting came to 284,000 cubic meters. The plan for development drift was excelled by 31 meters, with the total number of meters being 801 meter. The consumers received 214,700 tonnes of solid fuel, most of which (101,700 tonnes) went to Yuzhnouralskaya State District Power Plant, the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative.

UTair Finance Ltd. allotted the second bond issue with a par value of 1 billion RUR on March 14, 2006 via Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MMVB Stock Exchange) in the course of an open auction aimed at determining the interest rate coming from the first warrant. 52 investor applications were presented altogether, the total demand coming to 1,953,000,000 RUR with first warrant interest rate ranging from 9.70% to 10.6% a year. Most applications fell into the 7.9% to 8.0% bids. The emitting company set the first warrant interest rate at 10.4% a year (25.93 RUR per bond), the interest rate of

Within two months of 2006, the calibration plant of Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, and MMK-Metiz JSC have managed to produce 64,100 tonnes of goods. The first plant produced 21,500 tonnes in February and 38,800 tonnes since the beginning of the year. The second company produced 14,700 tones in February and 25,300 tonnes since the beginning of the year. According to the spokespersons, there appears to be a slight drop in production compared to a year earlier, yet both plants intend to make up for this in March by producing 40,000 tonnes of goods.

‘Sverdlovsk Region Court vacated the sentence upon Sergey Pavlov and Alexei Yermolenko who run KOR Company. The two had been convicted by Kirovskiy Court of Yekaterinburg following the charge based on Clause 111 of Russian Criminal Code with assault and battery of Alexander Kostyukov, an entrepreneur, that resulted in his death. Mr Pavlov was then sentenced to 12 years in prison, Mr Yermolenko to 8 years,’ reported the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Court Galina Subbotina. ‘The case has been returned to Kirovskiy Court of Yekaterinburg to be reconsidered by a new constitution of the court

The № 2 department of the company’s hydrometallurgical shop is having its automation and control system upgraded. According to their spokesperson, the new system will make possible the more detailed and precise record of the technological processes as well as error analysis and management in case of a breakdown. This information will be available on the corporate site in real time format and is to be viewed by the workers of the operational department. The central server will save all the data and thus allow the specialists to check the working status every sixty seconds. The project will

Nizhnetagilskiy Metallurgichesliy Kombinat JSC, Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil, received the equipment needed for assembling the second ultrasound quality inspection unit. According to the company’s spokesperson, the first such unit was installed in June 2004 and has already proved highly efficient. The system is capable of testing a wheel according to 13 different criteria (determined by the Russian Railroad, the international and national standards, and American, German, and French specifications) within just one minute. Both RWI (Railroad Wheel Inspection) units were

The tripartite water-recycling cooler is currently under overhaul at the energy power shop of Ufaleynickel JSC; it’s at its first stage of improvement at the moment, that is, all the obsolete metal parts are to be dismantled as well as the sheeting and the pipelines, the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative.

Stage 1 of Skipovoy shaft overhaul has been completed at Gorno-Shorskiy subsidiary of Evrazruda, an ore maker. According to the company’s spokesperson, both conductor threads were replaced at the beginning of March, with the total length of 96 upgraded conductors coming to over 1 kilometer. The new skips placed at the curb level were lined with armour to improve their durability and are now fit for being installed. The old skips are to be dismantled between March 17 and April 1 and replaced with the new ones having the sliding shutter rather than the flap gate. The final stage of the overhaul

Vyacheslav Prakin, former executive director of Sverdlovsk regional branch of Rossiyskie Kommunalnye Sistemy JSC (Russian public supply systems) is appointed GD of Regionalnaya Teplosnabzhayushchaya Kompaniya, a member of KES-Holding. The appointment was reported by the company’s PR-department. According to the company’s spokesperson, it’s been evoked by the on-going merger of housing and communal services business of KES-Holding with Rossiyskie Kommunalnye Sistemy JSC.

The gas network modernization operations of Chelyabinskgorgaz JSC in Planovy settlement of Chelyabinsk have reached the completion phase. The modernization will be finished after the replacement of tubes at a 100-meter sector of Planovy pipelines. The new tubes will be of a bigger diameter, so the replacement is to open a possibility of increasing the gas supply of the settlement. The replacement is to be accomplished within two days. The main gas network of Planovy was constructed 25 years ago. Since that time, a lot of new houses have been built. Therefore, gas consumption naturally

On March 14, 2006 1.4% shareholding of Uraltransbank was sold at an auction. The shareholding was put up to the auction by a Gazprom subsidiary, Uraltransgaz Ltd, within the framework of Gazprom getting rid of its marginal assets. The shareholding was acquired by Dorstroyinvest Ltd. According to the spokesperson for Uraltransbank, Dorstroyinvest paid 10 million RUR for the shares, whereas the opening bid was 5 million RUR. Dorstroyinvest Ltd is located at 10 Tramvayny Lane, Yekaterinburg. It might have acted in the third party’s interests.

In 2005, Chelyabinskaya Generiruyushchaya Kompaniya JSC, member of Territorialnaya Generiruyushchaya Kompaniya №10, purchased 1,412,571,000 RUR worth of equipment, raw materials and services. The purchases were made on a competitive basis. Due to the suppliers’ competition the company saved up 52,822,000 RUR off the initially declared purchasing price. The purchases were mainly accomplished through an open competition. In more than 80% of the purchases, the company employed national electronic B2b-energo trading floor. In particular, Chelyabinskaya Generiruyushchaya Kompaniya purchased the

On March 14, 2006, Ural Turbine Works CJSC (part of Renova Group) presented its new PGU-90 combined-cycle plant that is fully competitive with the world’s leading brands yet is more economical at the 4th annual international conferenceexhibition RUSSIA POWER 2006. ‘The Russian and global power engineering markets potential are extremely favorable for our company to become the key player in the field as Yekaterinburg is back in the vanguard of power machine building. Both our company and the current state policy as declared by the President are correspondingly oriented. The new combined-cycle

‘As Gazprom has been getting rid of its marginal assets, its executive Mr Miller ordered that all assets be sold. Thus, UralTransGas sold its 1% something shareholding to UralTransBank today,’ Chairman of UralTransBank JSC Valeriy Zavodov announced at the press conference. ‘UralFinance Bank, supposedly acting on behalf of some Moscow bank, was one of the bidders at this auction. To be able to take part in the auction, a bank has to have a guarantee from a highly capitalized bank, which was not the case with UralFinance. As all of the local banks refused to give it the guarantee, it applied to

According to the spokesperson for Yuriy Zolotov, Deputy Public Prosecutor of Ural Federal District, GD of Mayak Production Association Vitaliy Sadovnikov was removed following the decisions of the public prosecution authorities and of the court sitting of March 13, 2006. The respective decree was signed by the Head of Federal Atomic Energy Agency S. V. Kirienko yesterday. Mr Sadovnikov is being charged with safety violations concerning environmentally hazardous waste treatment based on Clauses 246 and 247 of Russian Criminal Code Deputy GD and Chief Engineer Alexander Suslov will become the

Magnesite Industrial Complex has already retrained 3893 employees in January and February 2006. This has cost the company 890,520 RUR The retraining was made possible due to the special individually designed programs aimed at improving the skills that are currently in greatest demand and help employees form the practical skills in both instructors and workers as well as newcomers. Such retraining scheme meets the requirements of the quality management system. As the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative, there are currently 11,427 people working, of whom 9,585 (87.7%) are in the