UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 6, 2017. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) has supplied its casing pipes with TMK UP MAGNA threaded joints and lubricant-free Green Well coating to Lukoil for the first time this year. According to the company press service, the pipes got delivered to Yu.S. Kuvykin Deposit in the Caspian Sea with TMK experts’ supervision. The shipment was part of a contract for the delivery of the entire set of TMK Premium casing pipes with Green Wall coating. TMK UP MAGNA is a premium class threaded joint meant for pipes with the diameter of 340 mm to 508 mm. These joints can be

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 6, 2017. Ural Airlines are now offering their customers another scheduled flight to Tel Aviv. Their direct Sochi-Tel Aviv flight is operated every Thursday and Sunday. The air carrier’s press service reports the flight will be available from April 13 till late October 2017. Prices start from 7,103 RUR (one way, all fees included). ‘Tel Aviv is an amazing Mediterranean resort location, always full of life. The city has something to offer both to young people, who enjoy walks, shopping, cafes, and entertainment locations, and families with children, who can go to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 6, 2017. SKB-Bank and Mir National Payment System are about to issue their Mir debit cards fitted with a microprocessor chip, the bank’s press service reports. Mir card was created with the government’s support and is meant for transactions performed by customers of Russian banks. Mir meets the global security standards and ensures unfailing performance within the entire country. The cards will be used by civil service workers, who get their social welfare payments onto the card account, and by those who travel around the country a lot. Mir is available at any of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 5, 2017. SKB-Bank’s Elite-Bank branch in Yekaterinburg was founded ten years ago this month, the bank’s press service reports. ‘Elite-Bank is SKB-Bank’s branch set up for providing personal services to VIP customers. This was an entirely new level of banking service at the time, something that set a European-standard benchmark for premium banking services in the Urals. Ten years ago, Elite-Bank was the only private banking outlet in Yekaterinburg,’ the press service says. More than a thousand customers now bank with Elite-Bank; Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk Region’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 5, 2017. New suction systems got installed at Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant’s Foundry Department 2, the company press service reports. The new equipment was part of the head plant’s overall program on the improvement in working conditions. ‘These up-to-date suction systems are meant for air filtering on welding and defect-fixing sites and are very efficient in trapping dust and welding fumes,’ the press service says. The suction units were installed in four sections of Foundry Department 2. As a result, the harmful air emissions were greatly reduced.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 5, 2017. The number of meters and gadgets that automatically exchange their data online has gone up by 30% in the Urals in the last twelve months, the telecommunications provider MegaFon’s press service reports. Thanks to the increased use of smart appliances, companies switch to autonomous business process mode ever more often and thus improve their efficiency. ‘For one, SIM cards are used to control street lighting in Spain; the light grows dimmer when streets are empty. Also, smart garbage containers report on getting filled; all this resulted in a 25% cut in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 5, 2017. Ural Airlines now offer direct flights from Saint Petersburg to Tel Aviv on Thursdays and Sundays, the air carrier’s press service reports. Prices start from 7,560 RUR (one way, one piece of luggage under 23kg). ‘Tel Aviv is an amazing Mediterranean resort location, always full of life. The city has something to offer both to young people, who enjoy walks, shopping, cafes, and entertainment locations, and families with children, who can go to intersecting children’s playgrounds, fountains, and beaches. The city has one of the world’s most beautiful

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 5, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ) sent the materials needed to restore their tractor to the Crimea. The tractor, which dates back to the thirties, was found in a quarry, the plant’s press service reports. ‘We were contacted by experts from the Eastern Crimea History & Culture Museum, who said they found Stalinets, a ChTZ tractor, on the premises of Adzhimushkaysky Quarry. The experts were able to identify the make, ChTZ’s first ligroin tractor S 60. Judging by the photos they sent, they were right,’ the press service says.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 4, 2017. Two new trams supplied by Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Uraltransmash entered Yekaterinburg streets on March 30, the plant’s press service reports. The trams service Route 2 - from Frezerovschikov St to VIZ over the city’s Ordzhonikidzevsky, Zheleznodorozhny, Kirovsky, Leninsky, and Verkh-Isetsky Districts. 71-405 trams have been painted the company colors to celebrate the plant’s 200th anniversary. Such special trams can now be seen in both Yekaterinburg and other Russian cities everywhere from the Northern Urals to Krasnodar Territory. ‘The trams are

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 4, 2017. Sinara Group and Siemens’s joint venture Ural Locomotives supplied this year’s first set of locos to the Russian Railways. The customer received twenty-five 2ES6 Sinara locomotives within the framework of the plant’s first-quarter production program. According to Sinara Group’s PR Center, twenty locos from this set will head for Sverdlovsk Railways and the remaining five units will be used at South Ural Railways. This year, the company is also planning to enter Kuibyshev Railways, where Ural Locomotives will also supply its locos. Russian Railways will

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 4, 2017. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development opened Sredneokhotinsky, a new branch in Saint Petersburg that offers a full range of banking services to private customers, the bank’s press service reports. The bank also set up two street retail branches in Saint Petersburg in January 2017. Both branches are basically ATMs/payment terminals. Now customers can open a deposit, apply for a loan or a debit/credit card, make money orders, and open or close their current accounts. This means the bank currently operates one full-fledged branch, one branch with

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 4, 2017. Ural Airlines are offering their passengers a new flight from Saint Petersburg to Kutaisi, Georgia, starting from May 3, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘Kutaisi is a location in the ancient kingdom of Colchis, where Jason traveled to get the Golden Fleece . It’s worth visiting for its old little streets, its delicious cuisine, and the eternal beauty of the Caucasus Mountains,’ the airline’s press service says. Ural Airlines’ flight will be operated every Wednesday. Two more flights to Georgia (Saint Petersburg-Tbilisi and Saint Petersburg-Batumi)

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 4, 2017. Russian Copper Company and Vishnevogorsky Council signed a cooperation agreement on behalf of the company’s Mauksky Ore Mine and the town residents on March 30, 2017. This was part of the company’s large-scale corporate social responsibility program, their press service says. The ceremony was attended by Mayor of Vishnevogorsk Yakov Gusev, Mauksky Ore Mine Director-General Nikolai Gridin, and Vice President of Russian Copper Company for Human Resources and CSR Anna Shabarova. Under the terms of this agreement, Russian Copper Company Group’s member

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 3, 2017. 4,735 new automobiles were sold on Yekaterinburg market in the first two months of the year, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 3%, Auto Dealer Yekaterinburg reports. The market also went up by 3% in February, with local dealers selling 2,737 new cars. Lada remains the market leader. The sales of the top three best selling brands (the Russian Lada, KIA, and Renault) rose by over 30% in January and February 2017. At the same time, Toyota and Nissan have been selling increasingly worse. The two Japanese brands’ sales dynamics, along with those

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 3, 2017. Yekaterinburg Customs officers have initiated fifteen administrative lawsuits with the help of their risk management system since the start of the year (compared with seven a year earlier), with over 100m RUR worth of fines transferred to the federal budget (compared with 70m RUR a year earlier), the Customs’ press office reports. For one, 55 m3 of fir tree timber materials were left undeclared at Serov Customs Point. When alerted to the problem, the entrepreneur said he’d entered ‘pine tree timber materials’ instead of ‘fir tree timber materials’ by

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 3, 2017. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development and the National Credit History Bureau can now produce their business customers’ credit history records right at the bank’s branches, the bank’s press service reports. ‘SMEs are gradually developing a different approach to bank financing. Businesses come up with a carefully prepared application package and check their credit history prior to applying for a loan. Even a small delayed payment somewhere in the remote past might cause a company to lose the funding it needs for growth,’ says UBRD Corporates

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 3, 2017. First Fright Company’s (PGK) Chelyabinsk subsidiary keeps working to rebuild Nickel, its washing and steaming station. The first reconstruction stage cost the plant 400m RUR, PGK’s press service reports. The goal is to reduce the station’s environmental impact and thus improve the environmental conditions in the nearby town of Orsk and working conditions of the station’s workers. ‘Switching to green technologies means all the railcar steam treatment operations will be fully automated. All the basic production processes and final quality control will be

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 3, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant is hosting its 4th physics championship for high school students from schools based in Nizhniy Tagil’s Dzerzhinskiy District. The prizes are supplied by the plant’s Executive Director and Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly Deputy Vladimir Roschupkin. According to the company press service, the championship was part of the plant’s corporate social responsibility projects and its partnership with the local schools. This year, 73 students competed for the prizes, including 29 15-year-olds, 19 16-year-olds, and 27

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 31, 2017. Irina Osadchaya, an atmospheric control lab engineer from EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works, won an environmental award in the Glory to the Man of Labor professional skills contest, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s press office reports. Osadchaya presented her report on the environmental effects of retooling the company’s coke dry-quenching plant in Professional Engineers category. ‘The CDQ plant upgrades have meant the unit was fitted with new suction systems and fabric filters. This is the first time something like this has been done in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 31, 2017. Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (ChTPZ) Board of Directors approved of the plant’s annual accounting report and the annual report for 2016 at their meeting on March 27, 2017, the company press service reports. The BOD members suggested that the shareholders approve of the company’s revised Charter and other internal regulation documents and vote for the distribution of last year’s dividends in the course of the upcoming AGM. The BOD also decided on the list of candidates to get elected on the new Board during the annual general meeting. All of the