UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 29, 2018. Yekaterinburg’s application to be the hosting city for the EXPO 2025 Exhibition was presented at Davos Economic Forum. According to Director-General of EXPO 2025 Application Committee Svetlana Sagaydak, the 48th World Economic Forum’s theme (‘Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World’) strikes a chord with that of Russia’s application (‘Changing the World: Innovations and Better Life for Future Generations’). ‘Despite this modern world’s troubles, we need to think of the future we are to hand over to the coming generations. The fourth industrial

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 29, 2018. Ural Customs detected and had destroyed 302,000 kg of foods that cannot get imported to Russia due to food embargoes, head of Ural Customs Maxim Chmora said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘This was much more than in the year 2016, since we learned to identify certain import schemes and locate storage spots, which has meant we uncovered large shipments of sanctioned goods,’ Chmora said. The customs authorities initiated 4,680 administrative lawsuits in 2017, which exceeded the figures for one year previously by 70%, and 92 criminal lawsuits

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 26, 2018. Sverdlovsk Oblast's division of Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service uncovered five price-fixing arrangements on the local markets last year. Thirteen legal entities had to face administrative liability, Head of the division's Antitrust Enforcement Department Ekaterina Vorobieva said at a recent press conference in Yekaterinburg. According to Vorobieva, two price-fixing agreements had to do with supplying surgical suture materials and two more – with highway construction and repair. Yet another arrangement was related to catering

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 26, 2018. Ural Airlines set a flying record of sorts: the airline's pilots have flown 1,000,000 hours with Airbus aircraft since the air carrier started using its first Airbus in 2006, the company press service reports. Over 300,000 flights have been operated so far, with more than 40m passengers on board; hundreds of new destinations have been introduced, connecting dozens of countries and cities to one another. Ural Airlines started using Airbus liners in November 2006; A320 was used for Yekaterinburg-Moscow flight. There are currently forty-three A320 (23

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 26, 2018. EVRAZ Holding's Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) now makes a new kind of metal product, 30P channel beams. The first commercial-scale batch of rolled metal produce was made for the customers in Saint Petersburg and Moscow Oblast in January, the company press service reports. 'These hot-rolled 300-mm-high channel beams with parallel faces and increased hardness parameters are used for making heavy-duty frameworks. The beams are quite popular with housing developers and building reconstructors as well as with machine-builders.

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, January 26, 2018. Russian Copper Company Group's Kyshtym Copper Electrolysis Plant (KMEZ) introduced yet another upgrade to its copper cathode production department. The department now operates three new electric current converters (two primary ones and one back-up one), the Group's press service reports. The new equipment runs upon thyristor-controlled rectifiers and has better output, capacity, and current rectifier parameters than its old diode versions. KMEZ expert from the Senior Power Engineer's Department Vladimir Zubov, Senior Electrician Sergey

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 26, 2018. Rosatom TVEL's Novouralsk-based asset Ural Electrochemical Combine completed the startup and commissioning of an impregnation treatment plant for finely dispersed nuclear materials, the plant's press service reports. The new plant makes it possible to condition non-recyclable radioactive waste into the necessary activity levels. Only once the radioactive waste-filled vessel has been cemented does it get placed inside a container for further disposal. All the necessary operations (preparation of the cement solution, delivery of the radioactive

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, January 25, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is currently coordinating its local section of inter-company experience-sharing workshop for job safety and industrial safety experts and managers, MMK Information, PR & Advertising Department reports. ‘In addition to MMK experts, the workshop will also be attended by professionals from Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Works, Novolipetsk Metallurgical Works, Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works, Severstal, Metalloinvest, and Russia’s other leading metallurgical enterprises - around sixty managers and job

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 25, 2018. ChTPZ Group’s Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ) had its environmental management system certified in accordance with the international ISO 14001:2015 standard requirements, the Group’s press service reports. The certification procedure was carried out by TUV Rheinland. Upon the completion of the audit, the certification body confirmed that PNTZ’s environmental management system met all the strict standards and that the plant introduced all the new regulations at its production sites successfully. The new certificate is now valid for the next three years.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 25, 2018. Sinara Group’s TMK CHERMET worked on a number of projects to bring down its scrap metal-processing facilities’ environmental impact in the Year of The Environment, the Group’s PR Center reports. ‘For one, the company came up with a program for sewage disposal at its production site in Volzhsky and expanded the area of concrete-covered scrap metal storage facilities at its sites in Taganrog, Yekaterinburg, and Engels. Also, training sessions were conducted with employees, accompanied by a number of supporting visual aids on sites.’ ‘The company’s nineteen

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, January 25, 2018. Russian Copper Company’s Chelyabinsk Oblast-based asset Kyshtym Copper Electrolysis Plant (KMEZ) set a new production record last year, making over 128,000,000 kg of copper cathodes (up 5% on the year 2016), Russian Copper Company’s press service reports. This was possible mostly to increased crude copper output at Karabashmed, which is primarily responsible for supplying KMEZ with raw stuffs. Karabashmed made 7% more copper in 2017 than in 2016, with final output at 120,000,000 kg. ‘KMEZ fully switched to mineral stuffs supplied by Russian Copper

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 25, 2018. Sverdlovsk Oblast’s industrial production index (IPI) rose by 3.1% in January through December 2017 compared with the year 2016, Sverdlovskstat reports. More specifically, the IPI increased by 4% in the processing sector and by 5.6% in the sector for production and distribution of electric power, natural gas, and water, and declined by 15.4% in the fossils production sector. At the same time, Sverdlovsk Oblast’s industrial production index shrank by 3% in December 2017 compared with December 2016.

UrBC, Moscow, January 24, 2018. Rostourism came up with a black list of hotels that charge extremely high prices for their rooms during the days of the World Football Championship this year, head of Rostourism Oleg Safonov said in his interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta. According to Safonov, forty-one hotels in Volgograd, Samara, Kaliningrad, and Rostov Oblasts, in Krasnodar Territory, and in Moscow have been blacklisted so far. ‘Some of the hotels charge 260% more than their normal price, or even higher. We intend to publish the list in the nearest future; the list is based on our checks of how

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 24, 2018. 463,511 consumer loans were issued to Sverdlovsk Oblast-based borrowers last year, which exceeded the figures for one year previously by 25.2%, National Credit History Bureau’s research findings indicate. In Russia on the whole, 15.25 loans got issued, which was 20.9% more than in 2016. ‘Banks have been offering more consumer loans to their applicants as the economy is gradually growing more stable. Both creditors and borrowers (who started coming to banks for loans once again) proved more active last year. The factors at work were reduced interest rates

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 24, 2018. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) is going to supply to Rosneft 8,000,000 kg of hi tech pumping and compression pipes with 13% Сr (Chrome 13) content and TMK UP PF premium, gas-proof threaded joints, the company press service reports. Based on the terms of the tender, TMK is to deliver the pipes to Rosneft’s daughter enterprises RN Vankor, RN Stavropolneftegaz, and ROSPAN International. The entire shipment will be manufactured at Sinara Pipe Plant. The pipes will get delivered to customer in 2018-2019. TMK has been supplying pipes to Rosneft with 13%

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 24, 2018. Sverdlovsk Oblast’s heating power end users owe their supplier Energosbyt Plus more than RUR 5.5bn in unpaid bills as of January 1, 2018, the supplier’s press service reports. Yekaterinburg remains the problem city, with unpaid debts at some RUR 4.2bn. The end users based in Nizhnyaya Tura and Lesnoy owe RUR 554m and RUR 210m, respectively. The primary debtors are actually the public housing services companies (their debt stands at RUR 4.3bn), followed by a number of state-run organizations (RUR 260m), industrial enterprises (RUR 65m), and private

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 24, 2018. SKB-Bank was among the top Housing Mortgage Lending Agency’s loan refinancing banks and proved No.1 bank with the most popular loan offers, the bank’s press service refers to BankInformService’s rating as stating. According to this rating, Sverdlovsk Oblast’s mortgage market hit a peak last year and did better than even in 2014. The overall market growth reached a whopping 43% compared with the year 2016. Experts single out three primary mortgage lending trends: increased demand for loan refinancing, discounts offered by housing developers, and dropping

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 23, 2018. Sinara Group’s Sinara Development completed the foundation for Yekaterinburg EXPO Congress Center, the Group’s PR Center reports. ‘2,600 bored and driving piles were placed on the construction site, and the upper section of the foundation got assembled as well. The necessary foundation frame got installed earlier to ensure the bearing structures’ workload can get evenly distributed across the area,’ the Center says. Workers are now busy assembling the building’s metal framework, with 1,600,000 kg of metalwork out of 5,000,000 kg already in place.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 23, 2018. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) sold 3.806m tons of pipes to customers last year, which exceeded the figures for a year earlier by 10.6%, TMK press service reports. The increase was mainly due to the company selling more pipes from its American division as the North American market showed signs of recovery. TMK sold 11.6% more weld-less pipes in 2017 than in 2016 (2.676m tons), mostly because of increased OCTG shipments. The company also shipped 8.4% more welded pipes to customers last year than one year earlier (1.129m tons). The considerable drop in

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, January 23, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) came first in the national rating of zinc-coated and paint-coated rolled metal goods according to Metallosnabzheniye I Sbyt magazine, MMK Information & PR Department reports. The magazine carries its rating of Russia’s leading ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgical enterprises and their suppliers on a regular basis. The latest issue features the rating for the second half of 2017. MMK has remained on top of this rating as the best zinc- and paint-coated rolled metal goods producer for over two years now. In