UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 19, 2017. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and Skolkovo Foundation agreed to set up MMK Research Center on the latter’s site, MMK’s Information, PR & Advertising Department reports. The agreement was signed by MMK Director-General Pavel Shilyayev and Skolkovo’s President Viktor Vekselberg. MMK intends to invest RUR 30m in the project in the next three years. The Research Center is meant to help implement a number of innovative projects on the plant’s primary production site, with the future economic output estimated at over RUR 100m. ‘Relying on

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 19, 2017. The telecommunications provider MegaFon expanded its 4G network coverage for the extra 4.7m users in the Urals, the company press service reports. 4G services are now available in 396 cities and towns all in all, which amounts to 83% of the Greater Urals. MegaFon’s overall LTE traffic has gone up by 65% since the start of the year. The company analysts found out their most active users are based in Udmurtia, Kirov Region, and Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Region, where per capita traffic figures are at their largest. Sverdlovsk Region-based subscribers

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 19, 2017. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is taking part in the International WorldBuild Baku 2017 Exhibition in Azerbaijan, MMK Information, PR & Advertising Department reports. ‘Azerbaijan has always been one of MMK’s key customers located within the CIS. Last year, the plant supplied over 150,000,000 kg of metal goods to the country. MMK’s exhibition stand features a wide range of produce on offer, mostly the kind suitable for construction purposes such as section iron, hot- and cold-rolled steel sheets, zinc-coated rolled goods, rolled products

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 18, 2017. ChTPZ Group joined the Ural High-Speed Link Project (USM), an investment project aimed at the construction of a high-speed railway line connecting Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk, the company press service reports. ChTPZ Group contributed RUR 50m to the partnership’s authorized capital. Chelyabinsk Region and Sverdlovsk Region Governments are also among the project’s co-founders. ‘The Group often takes part in projects that can improve the socioeconomic climate in the areas where the company runs its member enterprises. I’m positive that USM, a large-scale

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 18, 2017. Over two hundred participants of the 19th World Youth & Student Festival went on a tour of Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ) Finishing Center, where oil country tubular goods are made, and the plant’s Training Center. PNTZ is part of ChTPZ Group, the company press service reports. These tours of the Group’s production and education facilities for students and volunteers from more than seventy different countries are part of the festival’s local agenda. ‘Every year, both Russian scientists and celebrities and foreign delegations come to the Group’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 18, 2017. Nikolay Denisov’s team from EVRAZ Holding’s Mezhegeyugol Mine’s Section 2 did 1,070 meters worth of excavation jobs in 27 days. This production record was made possible due to improvement in production organization, the holding’s press service reports. ‘Nikolay Denisov’s performance is the best among EVRAZ mining companies at the moment. I hope their output figures will serve as a benchmark for the best-performing mining teams in Novokuznetsk and Mezhdurechensk,’ says EVRAZ Vice President and head of the company’s mining division Sergey Stepanov. Miners

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 18, 2017. Sverdlovsk Region’s industrial production index rose by 4.9% in January-September 2017 against January-September 2016, Sverdlovskstat reports. The processing industries’ IPI rose by 5.6%, that of the companies involved in production and distribution of electric power, natural gas, and steam rose by 10.4%, and that of fossil-extracting companies declined by 13.2%. As for the month of September, Sverdlovsk Region’s industrial production index declined by 5.3% compared with August 2017 and rose by 8.4% compared with July 2016.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 18, 2017. Sverdlovsk Region-based building companies’ and developers’ turnover amounted to RUR 73bn in January-September 2017, which was 16.4% below the figures for one year earlier, Sverdlovskstat reports. The turnover of beverage manufacturers shrank by 6.3% in January-September 2017, that of printed matter producers by 5.5%, that of leather goods manufacturers by 2.7%, that of textile manufacturers by 1.4%, and that of metal goods makers by 1.2%.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 17, 2017. Miners from EVRAZ Holding’s Raspadskaya Mine have produced 5,000,000,000 kg of coal since the start of the year. The symbolic piece of coal with the inscription ‘5,000,000,000 kg’ on it was presented to Raspadskaya Coal Company’s managers, the company press service reports. ‘This amount is an important benchmark for the company. Only two or three Russian coal-makers actually achieve this output figure in the course of one year. Raspadskaya’s team prove their professional skills with impressive results. Next year, our goal is to upgrade the equipment at

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, October 17, 2017. Russian Copper Company’s Kyshtym Copper Electrolysis Plant (KMEZ) delegates took part in the Russian Railways’ meeting in Chelyabinsk, the company press service reports. A special exhibition was prepared for this meeting, where South Ural Railways’ stations presented their partner’s great potential to President of Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov. ‘Kyshtym Station presented KMEZ as something unique both to Kyshtym and Russian Railways. The plant forwards up to seven railcars with Russian Railways every day; this comes to about a quarter of the station’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 17, 2017. Rimera’s Boris Kovalenkov got elected Director-General of ChTPZ Group’s pipe-manufacturing division; the decision was taken at the Group’s Board of Directors meeting today. According to the company press service, Kovalenkov enters office on October 16, 2017 and will be in charge of operational management of the company’s pipe-manufacturing facilities, business efficiency, improvements in the division’s financial and production performance, and sales market expansion. Former DG Alexander Grubman decided to leave the Group once his contract has expired.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 17, 2017. Ural Airlines are launching their new flight from Krasnoyarsk to Yekaterinburg and back, the air carrier’s press service reports. The scheduled flights will be operated every Wednesday and Friday (to Yekaterinburg) and every Monday and Wednesday (to Krasnoyarsk) between October 30, 2017 and March 21, 2018. Prices start from 4,000 RUR and are already on offer. The new flight is a great opportunity to enjoy the convenient connecting flights from Yekaterinburg to other locations in Russia and the CIS: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Sochi, Kaliningrad,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 17, 2017. SKB-Bank now offers extra options to customers interested in a mortgage: your down payment may only come to 10% now if you use the state-provided maternity fund to cover your payments. Also, there is the Easy Mortgage scheme for customers who are pressed for time in terms of paperwork, the bank’s press service reports. Additionally, customers based in Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk Region can now apply for a mortgage within the Housing Mortgage Finance Agency’s program (interest rate: 6.45% a year; loan period: up to thirty years; down payment: 30% or

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 16, 2017. ChTPZ Group’s Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ) installed a stationary atmospheric emissions monitoring unit, the company press service reports. The up-to-date equipment takes test samples automatically 24/7. PNTZ invested around RUR 6m in the project. The monitoring unit allows the plant to control the suspended particulate matter, nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, and carbon oxide content in the air, these being the most widespread harmful chemicals. The monitoring data will get transferred to the plant’s sanitary and epidemiological lab for processing

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 16, 2017. Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station is about to start transferring the spent fuel off its shut-down Power-Generating Units 1 and 2 (Reactors AMB 100 and AMB 200) onto Mayak in Ozersk, Chelyabinsk Region, the station’s press service reports. The logistics and technological solutions for the transfer got developed in full compliance with all the safety requirements. Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station and Mayak did a number of tests together to go over every small detail to do with loading, transfer, unloading, and storage of spent fuel. A trial transfer of

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 16, 2017. The 44th WorldSkills Competition 2017 will open in the United Arab Emirates’ capital Abu Dhabi tomorrow. Two students of Magnitogorsk Polytechnic (Alexander Arapov and Maxim Aksenov) will compete as part of the Russian national team in Mechatronics. According to Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Information & PR Department, the two students are studying production automation. Both Alexander Arapov and Maxim Aksenov have taken part in all kinds of skills contests before; they won the first prize in the local round of the WorldSkills

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 16, 2017. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) reduced its consumer loan interest rates in October: depending on the loan type, the decrease amounts to anything between 1% and 7.9%, the bank’s press service reports. According to UBRD Lending Services Director Svetlana Davydova, loans are generally growing more affordable on the national market. ‘Russian banks have to adjust their consumer loan interest rates in compliance with the Central Bank’s requirements and so as to keep up with the current market trends. Better lending terms naturally

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 16, 2017. EVRAZ Holding directed over RUR 2.5m to two school labs in Nizhniy Tagil that need equipment, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s PR Department reports. The company funded new appliances for Ural Federal University Nizhniy Tagil Technological Institute’s General & Experimental Physics Laboratory and for Nizhniy Tagil Mining & Metallurgical School’s CAD Engineering Design Laboratory. Both colleges are key providers of EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works’ hiring pool. The physics lab now has 118 kinds of demonstration and measuring

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 13, 2017. ChTPZ Group’s Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ) acted as the sponsor for the All-Russian Research-to-Practice Conference on Health Risk Management. The conference is dedicated to managing healthcare risks for both metallurgical industry workers and people living near metallurgical sites and has attracted some international speakers as well, the plant’s press service reports. The event will be held in Yekaterinburg on October 12-13, 2017. The event is coordinated by the Federal Supervision Agency for Customer Protection and Human Welfare. Experts from

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 13, 2017. Ural Airlines looked into its performance in the first three quarters of the year. The airline has offered its services to 6,122,117 people since the start of the year, up 23% on one year previously, the air carrier’s press service reports. The company operated 41,927 flights between January 1 and September 30, 2017, including 25,467 domestic flights, 7,514 flights to and from the CIS member states, and 8,946 international flights. This exceeded the figures for January-September 2016 by 16%. The airline’s passenger turnover came to 14,579,737,000