UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 29, 2016. Three workers of Omsktransmash (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) got the Russian Defense Ministry awards, the company press service reports. ‘Under the Minister’s decree, the company Deputy Director-General Georgiy Chevdar was awarded the For Strengthening of the Military Cooperation Medal, while head of the plant’s Assembly Department Oleg Zakharov and head of Metrological Department Gennady Okoneshnikov received the For Labor Valor Medals,’ the press service says. The former decoration is awarded for the awardee’s contribution to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 28, 2016. SKB-Bank now offers business owners and managers a new service: they can now find a contractor to best suit their unique needs, the bank’s press service reports. The bank can now provide its customer with a database of Russian businesses operating in a certain sector. ‘Let’s say the customer is looking for a metal supplier in order to put up a building, or wants to save the time its employees would have to spend on finding the suitable companies and getting in touch with them. SKB-Bank can provide this information in no time at all,’ the press service says.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 28, 2016. EVRAZ Holding member West-Siberian Integrated Metallurgical Works (ZSMK) completed the overhaul of its blast furnace 1, EVRAZ Holding Siberia’s press office reports. ‘This will ensure better production performance and increase time between repairs. To make sure there are no emergencies, we had the hood partially replaced and the cooling system completely replaced, new modern pumps added and the fire-insulating adjustments renovated. We also had the loading units repaired and some of the upper-part equipment replaced,’ the press office says. The repairs also

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 28, 2016. Sinara Group, Russian Railways, China Railway and the Chinese company CRRC signed an agreement to set up a joint venture in Russia that would specialize in making high-speed trains (over 300 km/h), the Group’s press service reports. The agreement states that the four parties would consolidate their efforts in finding orders for at least a hundred high-speed trains. The goal is to create a localized production plant and to offer lifetime after-sale services in Russia as well. The Group is in charge of organizing production, while CRRC will be responsible for

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 28, 2016. EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) launched a modern gas-filtering system that has reduced the gas and dust emissions by four times, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s press service reports. The new system is fitted with 450 filtering hoses to prevent harmful atmospheric emissions. The system also comprises a filtering chamber, a special transporter to move the dust into an airtight bunker from which it can be re-used and recycled. The equipment has improved the crane operators’ and the steelmakers’ working conditions considerably. A

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 28, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation got its tank-type railcar 15-5183 certified by the Federal Railway Transport Register, the company press service reports. The tank is meant for transportation of liquefied ammonium and can be used on all the 1,520-mmm railways. The tank’s internal capacity has been increased to 3,200 mm/73.1 m3, which is much better than most of its counterparts currently used on the Russian market. The extra 11.5-m3 load option allows for an 18% reduction in the number of railcars a freight forwarder will need for the same amount of ammonium.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 27, 2016. Experts from Ural State Mining University carried out an independent audit of Tominsky Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise and stated it could be environmentally safe to go ahead with the construction, Russian Copper Company’s press service reports. The independent auditing procedure was commissioned by Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Boris Dubrovsky. Ural State Mining University was assigned to do the job. The experts were presented with over 600 volumes of project documentation, which it took them several months to look into. According to Deputy

UrBC, Moscow, June 27, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development expanded the range of services it offers through Light, an e-banking package for business customers, the bank’s press service reports. ‘Businesspeople using our e-banking options can now transfer, sell, or buy foreign currencies online as well as have all the transaction certificates and report forms issued remotely,’ the press service says. The bank invariably relies on customer feedback when working on new e-banking and m-banking services, so Light was given an entirely new interface last year to better suit the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 27, 2016. United Energy Systems Federal Grid Company/FGC UES got all the high-voltage equipment at its Sotnik 220-kilowatt substation in Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region upgraded or renovated, the company press service reports. These changes ensures a much more reliable power supply for the O&G companies in the area and for the town of Urai. The substation runs six modern high-voltage, RIP-insulated units. The new machinery is more dependable, convenient to use, environmentally safe, and very fire-resistant. The company intends to get fifty-five such units

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 27, 2016. EVRAZ Holding’s Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise/EVRAZ KGOK spent over 245m RUR on job and industrial safety improvements, the company press service reports. For one, two grab cranes used for loading iron-ore concentrate were fitted with new cabins. These have an anti-vibration control system and a seat reclining lever. ‘Besides, the cabins are fitted with tripe glazing to ensure nearly 100% noise insulation, and a smart heating/ventilation system for optimal temperature settings. The viewing angles are now much better thanks to the three

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 27, 2016. Yurga Machine-Building Plant (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) purchased a new low-frequency vibration treatment unit, the company press service reports. ‘One of the things the plant does is making metal structures that require sophisticated mechanical treatment. Some of these structures weigh over 10,000 kg, which results in high residual welding stress figures after the welding is done. Also, it is very expensive to use thermal treatment furnaces that are big enough for these. This is why it was decided to introduce this low-frequency

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 24, 2016. Novgorod Metallurgical Plant has processed over 5,600,000 kg of blister copper supplied by Karabashmed so far; both companies are member enterprises of Russian Copper Company, the company press service reports. The plant started processing the blister copper produced by Karabashmed in the second quarter of the year. The metal gets delivered from Chelyabinsk Region to Veliky Novgorod by rail and by road. The plant processed 6,077,420 kg of blister copper in its Merz furnace between January and May 2016. The metal is used for making cathodes, the plant’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 24, 2016. EVRAZ Holding and the Slovenian company SZ-VIT started making sets of wheels for the European railway markets together, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s press office reports. The wheels get assembled in Slovenia and head for their European customers – large railway operators and freight railcar manufacturers. EVRAZ also won the tender to supply sets of wheels for one of the European market’s largest railway freight forwarders VTG AG. Under their contract, the holding will have to deliver a pilot batch of 700 to 1,000 sets of wheels to the forwarder this year. The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 24, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) supports Ural Music Night Festival in Yekaterinburg on June 24-25, the bank’s press service reports. For one, the bank coordinated an unusual open-air exhibition of exotic musical instruments for the city’s youngest residents and their parents next to the Tatischev and de Gennin Monument at 6 PM on June 24. The children can learn about ocarinas and reco-recos and the difference between a xylophone and a metallophone, practice some guitar and drum playing, and learn to play a steel tongue drum. Also,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 24, 2016. Alexei Kovalchuk, designer from Omsk Transport Machine-Building Plant (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) and member of Russian Engineering Union’s Omsk Region division, defended his PhD thesis on the development and improvement of technologies for making mathematically modeled cone-surfaced spare parts through cold pressing, the company press service reports. Kovalchuk proposed a number of new technologies for cold forging of cone-surfaced parts. ‘The cold-forging method is efficient in that the ingots come out as close in shape, size,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 24, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development had over 2,000 new POS terminals installed throughout the country in the five months of 2016, which was 54% more than in January-May 2015, the bank’s press service reports. 41% of the new terminals were installed in Sverdlovsk Region, the shares of Bashkortostan and Krasnodar Territory came to 9% each. The POS outputs rose by 30.5% between January and May, with the number of transactions up by 53.9% (1.9m). ‘The state has been actively promoting cashless payments for the last few years, so increasingly more

UrBC, Moscow, June 23, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s used car market came to 59,300 units in the five months of 2016, which is 7.8% more than one year earlier, Avtostat reports. In the country overall, the amount was 2.15m units (up 10.7% on the 1,820,100 units as of one year earlier). Moscow and Moscow Region’s combined market share comes to 12%; Moscow market amounts to 135,900 units (+8.6% on January-May 2015), that of Moscow Region to 117,700 units (+15.1%), that of Krasnodar Territory (5% of the country’s market) came to 88,500 units (+6.4%), and that of Saint Petersburg rose to 75,500 units

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 23, 2016. A ready-made Yekaterinburg-based business has come to cost 50% less on average since the start of the year, N1. RU reports. An ‘average’ ready-made business is an office/shopping space that is 740 m2 big and costs 17.2m RUR to buy. In December 2015, the average asking price stood at nearly 35m RUR, with offices 1,232 m2 big. The per-square-meter price dropped from 28,300 RUR down to 23,300 RUR (-18%). The market supply has remained nearly the same as last year, but the more expensive offers came to be replaced by the cheaper options. Rental options, motor

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 23, 2016. On July 7, the 7th All-Russian Akademichesky Building Project will begin in Yekaterinburg’s Akademichesky District. The project’s employers are offering summer jobs to students willing to work in the building industry during their time off campus. The following student teams are coming: Anita (Sverdlovsk Region), Akhtiar (Sevastopol), GOST (Saint Petersburg), Dedal (Perm Territory), Dzhungaria (Kalmykia), Zhenski Batalyon (Rostov Region), Zhenski Dvigatel (Novosibirsk Region), Impuls (Sverdlovsk Region), Kalinka (Sverdlovsk Region), Lyubava (Sverdlovsk

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 23, 2016. Sinara Group’s Sinara Development, the contractor-general in charge of reconstructing Yekaterinburg Arena Stadium in time for the World Cup 2018, got the supporting external ring structure of the roof fully assembled, Sinara Group’s PR Center reports. The ring was mounted on top of the northern stands at the height of 39.5 meters. The structure weighs 112,000 kg and consists of two metal beams, both of them hollow on the inside and made of highly durable steel with layer thickness around 80mm. Ten vans had to deliver a special crane (used earlier at the