Specialists of TroitskEnergoRemont CJSC, the power plant’s general contractor, started the overhaul of power-generating unit № 9 last week. The repairs are to include elimination of breeching leakage, replacement of armoring and beaters of hammer mills, and fixing the feed turbine pump 9A. Also, the defects of the electric filter and examination of № 5 low-pressure heater are to be paid attention to. All this is being done within the framework of the regular-basis overhauls, the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative.

N.A. Semikhatov Scientific Production Association of Yekaterinburg (aka Automatica) is to host an instrument-making technological park meant for producing particularly sophisticated circuit boards. This has been made possible owing to the decision of Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Vladimir Molchanov, directors of regional instrument-making enterprises, and representatives of the defense industry. According to the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Governor, a special committee of executives from the Ministry of Industry, Power Engineering and Science, defense enterprises, and

‘We are currently having nearly 30,000 square meters of production area and 500 square meters of offices rented, with the total area available for rent coming to 100,000 square meters (30,000 meters of warehouses and 10,000 meters of administrative buildings among them), Deputy GD of Stankomash JSC Vyacheslav Golub said to UrBC representative. ‘The plant now hosts furniture- and instrument- making enterprises, lumber dealers, food facilities, and companies dealing in blank metallurgical production and sales and purchases,’ Mr Golub said. According to Mr Golub, the issue of offering 35,000

Ural Chemical Company JSC allotted 500,000 bonds with a par value of 1,000 RUR each on the stock market; the total value of bonds comprised 500 million RUR. Bonds are offered publicly; the serial number is 4-02-31401-D of December 8, 2006.

The company produced 695,830,000 RUR worth of goods in the first two months of 2006, which is 24.6% more than a year earlier. 231 engineer vehicles with the total value of 400,901,000 RUR, 40 tractors, 2 pipelaying cranes, and 184 bulldozers were produced. The sales turnover came to 781,691,000 RUR (an increase of 31.2% compared to a year before); the sales included those of 224 engineering vehicles (444,306,000 RUR), tractor parts (266,061,000 RUR), the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative.

Standard & Poor’s announced the increase in the national scale long-term credit rating for Kalina Concern JSC (from ruBBB+ to ruА-) owing to the company’s stable business dynamics and the fairly low financial risks. ‘This increase reflects the company’s ability to build up their business activity and keep key positions in the core segments of the dynamic and competitive health and beauty products market. Besides, despite the quick growth, Kalina manages to improve its profitability indicators and maintain the financial risks at a fairly low level,’ said the credits analyst for Standard

Zlatoustovsky Metallurgichesky Zavod JSC (Metallurgical Works of Zlatoust, Chelyabinsk Region) is now a recognized supplier of electric vacuum-treated steel (specification B1-A) onto the North-American market. This information was reported in the beginning of March 2006 by Arwin Meritor Company. The latter is among the main US producers of heavy-duty trucks. Arwin Meritor is ready to buy 500 tonnes of rolled metal from Zlatoustovsky Metallurgichesky Zavod monthly. In 2005, Zlatoustovsky Metallurgichesky Zavod produced a pilot batch of axial billets made of AISI 1050 steel. The batch size was

‘A great number of our flights to various destinations are unprofitable, and they always have been. Today, people blame us for the absence of new aircrafts. This is a real problem for the bulk of Russian air-carriers, and, within the next few years, the situation will turn even worse due to the deficient domestic production of aircrafts and high import duties,’ the spokesperson for Ural Airlines PR-department said to UrBC representative. According to the PR-department of Ural Airlines, the company has successfully abided by its existing aircraft fleet up to now. It was quite enough to provide

Director of German Weinig Gruppe Alois Eismannberger visited the annual Weinig NIS representatives meeting in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Region. It’s the first time this meeting takes place in the Ural capital. ‘Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government and Minister for Industry, Power Engineering and Science Vladimir Molchanov met Mr Eismannberger on March 9, 2006 to discuss the prospects of introducing high-level timber processing technologies in the Ural works,’ reports the spokesperson for the Ministry. ‘Weinig Gruppe set up its Sverdlovsk Region subsidiary in 1995, and Weinig Ural

GD of UralBusinessConsulting Agency of Information and Analytics Evgeniy Potapov joined Russian Public Relations Association as an individual member. Russian Public Relations Association was set up in 1991 as an open civil NGO; it was founded by the USSR Journalists Union, the Advertisers Association, the Journalists Fund of Russian Soviet Republic, the UNO Secretariat (PR Department, NYC), Russian Soviet Republic Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Russian Commodity Exchange, Moscow Commodity Exchange, RosVneshTorg, VneshTorgReklama, the USSR Embassy in the US, USSR Ministry of Foreign

The total budget of the company’s projected investments comprises $1.1 billion RUR throughout 2006-2010. The better part of money ($750 million) is to be given to the mining segment, the rest is to go to the metallurgical segment. According to the company’s spokesperson, the metallurgical projects are targeted at the efficiency rise while keeping up with the current output; they will mainly be fulfilled at Metallurgical Works of Chelyabinsk (Mechel JSC). For instance, the plant will have to complete the construction of the extra continuous casting devices (it’ll cost nearly $50 million) in

Khrustalevskiye Zavody Ltd., the winery of Lesnoy, Sverdlovsk Region, resumed the production of strong drinks on March 2, 2006, reports the company’s spokesperson. According to Director Alexei Alexeev, the winery has already bought 165,000 new-format excise duty stamps and is thus able to go back to work. ‘The winery is expecting to produce 400,000 bottles a month, that is, 20 bottles daily,’ Mr Alexeev said.

According to the spokesperson for Ufaleynickel JSC, Chelyabinsk Region, the fourth converter has recently been renovated at the melting shop of the plant. Some vessel lining and replacement of metal parts such as coffer-dams have greatly improved the converter’s capacity.

The total refractory shapes production output of Kombinat Magnesite JSC for 2006 has come to 61,200 tons (an increase of 2.2% compared to 2005). The commercial powders output for the same period has increased by 6% and reached 123,800 tons. The total sales of refractory products came to 569.3 million RUR (5.6% more than in the first two months of 2005) in January and February 2006. The sales of commercial powders exceeded the same figures for 2005 by 7.4% and came to 284.4 million RUR. Witihin the first two months of 2006, the company increased its shipments of finished articles to Russian

Sverdlovsk Region RosPrirodNadsor Administration, the regional environmental surveillance service, has carried out 10 planned and 11 unplanned-for inspections following the citizens’ complaints within the last two months. According to their spokesperson, the inspections resulted in revealing 71 violations and 61 rectifying orders. 2 cases of illicit woodland occupation have also been detected in Shamarskiy Forestry. The damage is estimated to come to 461,548 RUR. The Administration cancelled two subsoil resource licenses issued to Svyatogor JSC, 2 licenses given to Nevyanskiy Quarry Ltd., and

Within February 2006, Magnitogrsky Metallurgichesky Kombinat JSC (Metallurgical Works of Magnitogorsk) produced 120,200 tons of ore, 790,400 tons of agglomerate, 432,200 tons of coke, 746,100 tons of cast iron and 888,900 tons of steel. The total metal production output in February 2006 came to 816,800 tons. The total production of Magnitogrsky Metallurgichesky Kombinat for the first two months of 2006 comprises 241,100 tons of ore, 1,752,800 tons of agglomerate, 918,200 tons of coke, 1,584,300 tons of cast iron and 1,873,500 tons of steel. The total metal production output in January and

Two more new companies (OMZ Metallurgy and OMZ Service MO) are to demerge from machine-building company OMZ Uralmash on July 1, 2006. According to the spokesperson for OMZ Uralmash, the new companies will develop their own market segments and do their own engineering as well as choose the sales policy. ‘This decision was made in order to build up our share of the market. Uralmashzavod now deals in its won projects as well as the ones ordered by our clients; since all the companies will still be run by the in-plant, it will perform all the orders they are to receive,’ the spokesperson said.

Uralliga Design Office CJSC sold its share holding to Industrial Safety Expertise CJSC of Chelyabinsk, reports the company’s spokesperson. The holding comprised 19% of the authorized capital in equities. The transaction is reported to have taken place on February 21, 2006.

S.M. Kirov Ust Katav Carriage Making Works (Chelyabinsk Region) produced the experimental version of 71-630 trams. According to Deputy GD Viktor Krasavin, the tram will be tested on rail in May or June 2006, then it’ll be re-examined and run in. ‘When assembling the tram, we were using, mostly, foreign parts; this is to be a large three-section carriage fit for 250 people,’ Mr Krasavin said. As for the supplies, the plant is thinking mainly of Moscow consumers as the capital’s Government has promised to buy 50 trams should the model withstand all the testing. Developing the tram cost the

Vladimir Nechepa was appointed Director of Russian Insurance Company RossGosStrakh in Sverdlovsk Region, reports the company’s spokesperson. Former Director Evgeniy Ostapenko (in office since 1999) left the company for another post. Mr Nechepa has up to this moment been the director of RossGosStrakh subsidiary in Vologda Region. His top priority now will have to be the significant improvement in the quality of the company’s services so as to sustain the fierce competition.