UrBC, Moscow, June 26, 2018. The ongoing increase in fuel prices on the Russian market has not affected the price of summer travel as yet, but winter trips are bound to grow at least 10% more expensive when the time comes, RIA Novosti refers to Counselor to Head of Rostourism Dmitri Gorin as stating. Russian Fuel Union (RTS) appealed to Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev in a letter, asking to ensure fair prices on the retail and wholesale fuel markets. The union believes this increase in the price of automobile and diesel fuel is unprecedented. RTS commented unfavorably on the regulatory

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, June 26, 2018. ChelPipe Group can now make large-diameter pipes from the innovative, cold-resistant K60 stripes supplied by Severstal, the Group’s press service reports. Vysota 239, a hi tech department at the Group’s Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant, made 1,200,000 kg of pipes (diameter: 720 mm and 1,020 mm; layer thickness: 19.3 mm and 27.3 mm) made from stripes manufactured at Severstal’s Mill 5000 Sheet-Rolling Department in Kolpino. These rolled metal strips possess certain properties to ensure outstanding impact strength even in extremely low temperatures (as low as 42

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, June 26, 2018. MMK Group’s member enterprise MMK METIZ increased its share of the Russian market by 2% in 2017 against one year earlier (total sales: 352,000,000 kg); the news was announced at the general shareholder meeting recently, MMK press service reports. Additionally, the company exported 2.8% more goods last year compared with the year 2016. The country’s largest metal goods manufacturers (all members of metallurgical holdings) sold around 2,000,000,000 kg of goods last year, which is comparable with the figures for the year 2016. The share of MMK METIZ amounted to

UrBC, Moscow, June 26, 2018. The number of respondents in a recent nationwide survey in Russia who do not believe the government will be able to provide them with a good enough pension comes to 78%, Superjob refers to its survey findings as indicating. Within those surveyed, the number of skeptical respondents who are male is greater than that of skeptical female respondents (81% and 75%, respectively). As for those who were hesitant to give a confident answer, the share of female respondents was greater here than that of male ones (16% and 9%, respectively). People seem to grow increasingly

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 26, 2018. The prime cost of agricultural produce is likely to go up by 20% to 25% due to rising fuel prices, head of Bitimsky Agricultural Cooperative Mikhail Maltsev told UrBC. According to Maltsev, the prime cost of processing agricultural raw stuffs and the cost of end user delivery will go up as well. ‘Gazpromneft upped the prices by 10% in the course of a couple of days (from RUR 47,000 per 1,000 kg to RUR 52,000, with no explanations whatsoever. Everyone in this industry is naturally indignant about the price increase,’ Maltsev said. He added certain subsidies

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, June 25, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) plans to invest some RUR 5.5bn in a number of environmental projects this year, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by nearly 40%, Maxim Yurchenko from MMK’s Environmental Protection Lab said at a recent International/Local Environmental Protection Experience Conference in Lipetsk. ‘Yurchenko made a detailed report on MMK’s green projects at the conference. The plant adopted an environmental management system as early as 2004; the system got re-certified for compliance with the international ISO 14001

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 25, 2018. Ural Airlines intend to keep operating their new additional Saint Petersburg-Tbilisi-Saint Petersburg flight in the winter, the air carrier’s press service reports. Starting October 2, 2018, the flight will be operated every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. The flight was originally introduced as a complementary one to the flights available on odd days in the week and will still be available in the winter period. U6 2801/2802 takes three hours and fifteen minutes; departure time (Saint Petersburg): 04:30 AM; arrival time (Tbilisi): 08:55 AM. More flights to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 25, 2018. ChelPipe Group is looking for applicants to enroll on its new Leadership Program — a master course at National University of Science & Technology (NUST MISIS), the company press service reports. Eligible to apply are graduates of Russian colleges under thirty years of age with a bachelor’s degree. They will major in Metallurgy and Technological Machines & Appliances. The two-year program covers courses on the most advanced technologies and trends in the metallurgical sector delivered by NUST MISIS’s best faculty members and ChelPipe Group’s leading

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 25, 2018. The entrance section of Clinic 32 in Zarechny, Sverdlovsk Region, will undergo a large-scale renovation, Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station’s Information & PR Department reports. The renovation jobs are part of the Lean Clinic Project coordinated by Rosatom State Corporation and Russia’s Federal Medico-Biological Agency; the project touches upon the cities and towns where Rosatom operates its nuclear power facilities. The goal is to ensure the clinic’s more efficient performance, cut down on patients’ waiting time, streamline the patients more

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 25, 2018. Retail price of gasoline rose by 9.1% on Sverdlovsk Region market in January-May 2018 compared with one year earlier and currently comes to RUR 40.8 per liter on average, deputy head of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service’s Sverdlovsk Region division Ekaterina Vorobieva said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg today. According to Vorobieva, the average retail price came to RUR 35.4 per liter in the year 2016; the figure went up to RUR 37.4 in 2017 (up 5.6%). A liter of diesel fuel could be had for RUR 37 on average in 2016 and for RUR 39.16 a year

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 22, 2018. A group of AvtoVAZ delegates, headed by the company president Yves Karakatzanis, paid a visit to Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK). The parties had a chance to talk over their current cooperation projects and potential manufacture of new steels for the car-making industry, MMK press service reports. This is the first time Yves Karakatzanis, who got appointed head of Russia’s largest carmaker in early June, has visited the plant. AvtoVAZ is one of MMK’s key partners, with more than 293,000,000 kg of metal goods supplied to the former in 2017 (overall

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 22, 2018. Ural Airlines won the Loyalty Awards Russia 2018 Prize for its efficient use of CRM within customer loyalty programs. ‘Integrating CRM with the airline’s Wings Club Loyalty Scheme signifies yet another stage in the program’s simplification and improvement. CRM allows for faster processing of a customer’s order structure and entire flight information online through emails, texts, and messenger services,’ the airline’s press service reports. Ural Airlines’ Wings Club offers its members bonus points that can be used to partially or fully cover the cost of any

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 22, 2018. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) paid its customers more than RUR 87.8m in cash back options in the first five months of 2018, which exceeds the figures for one year earlier by 46%, the bank’s press service reports. A UBRD customer got some RUR 600 back a month on average throughout January-May, which was 23% more than one year previously. The largest one-off repayment amounted to RUR 73,000; the bonus stemmed from paying for some construction stuffs. According to the bank’s data, their cardholders mostly use their cards to pay at

UrBC, Moscow, June 22, 2018. Russia’s Finance Ministry suggests bringing the duty-free limit on online shopping at international stores down to €100, TASS refers to the ministry’s Tax & Customs Policy Director Alexei Sazanov as saying. ‘We are looking into different schemes, the most likely scenario being a €500 limit starting July 1 and a €200 limit starting either January 1, 2019 or July 1, 2019. A €100 limit per parcel is also a possibility,’ the official said. According to Sazanov, a duty will get imposed on goods worth over €500 on July 1, 2018; starting from January 1, 2019, the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 22, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) is about to launch its fifth full-cycle railway wheel treatment line. All the appliances have been assembled, with four new automated mills set up in the wheel department. The holding has invested RUR 800m into the project, the company press service reports. ‘Our workers are now busy assembling the equipment meant for robotized transportation, loading, and unloading of wheel ingots, the metal chip crushing/cleaning units, and the coolant treatment station. They are also working on cables

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 21, 2018. Ural Airlines are introducing a new flight from Sochi to Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent, the air carrier’s press service reports. The flights will be operated on Airbus A320 liners (both Economy and Business options available) starting July 18, 2018. U6 2659 (Sochi-Tashkent) will be operated every Wednesday, U6 2660 (Tashkent-Sochi) every Thursday. ‘Tashkent is both Uzbekistan’s and Central Asia’s largest city where you can see ancient landmarks, spectacularly preserved. There is Tillya Sheikh Mosque, for example, which is believed to have a hair of the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 21, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s West Siberian Integrated Metallurgical Works launched a new slurry thickening unit meant for processing blast furnaces’ byproducts. Thanks to this new appliance, the plant will be able to cut its manufacturing water discharge and fresh water spending (into and from the River Tom, respectively) by nearly 3,000,000 m3, the holding’s press service reports. ‘The plant keeps working on its green projects in order to reduce its negative impact on the local waters. We managed to decrease our manufacturing water discharge by more than 15m m3 in the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 21, 2018. Thirty additional CCTV cameras got installed in Yekaterinburg in time for the World Football Championship days. The cameras got connected to MegaFon’s fiber optic lines, the telecommunications provider’s press service reports. The entire video stream gets delivered into both the local and the nationwide operation centers online. These highly sensitive cameras (viewing angle: 360 degrees) got installed at sports playgrounds in Festivalnaya St, Dagestanskaya St, and Krasnoflotsev St, in Mayakovsky Park’s fan zone, and on rooftops of buildings and MegaFon’s

UrBC, Moscow, June 21, 2018. OOO FCA RUS (Fiat’s authorized dealer in Russia) informs customers it is calling off 246 FIAT Freemont units, Rossstandart’s press service reports. The automobiles have to get called off because of a minor possibility of a short failure with Cruise Control on and at a low speed; the software might keep sending acceleration signals into the system, which might result in either the speed remaining the same or in acceleration. The cars will get checked and tested and the software updated if necessary. All the repair jobs will be done at no extra cost for the car

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 21, 2018. Russia intends to introduce a number of counter measures in response to U.S.-imposed steel and aluminum import duties; ‘mirror duties’ will only get imposed on U.S. goods that have their counterparts in the Russian Federation, Prime refers to Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin as stating. ‘As the United States keep up with their excessive steel and aluminum import duties and have no intention of compensating Russia for its losses, Russia will now act within its WTO authority to introduce counter measures relating to goods imported from the U.S.,’