UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 16, 2015. Trubnik.Lyudi.Sobytiya.Kommentarii won in the company newspaper contest for the Russian and the CIS metallurgical industry for this year, ChTPZ Group’s press service reports. The contest is coordinated by the Metallosnabzheniye I Sbyt magazine as part of the annual Metal Expo Exhibition. Corporate media of major metallurgical enterprises take part in the event. The group’s weekly has won the competition for the 10th time since the contest was introduced. ‘Our company newspaper is read by 16,000 people at all of our member enterprises and subsidiaries in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 16, 2015. Eterno, a joint venture run by ChTPZ Group and Rosnano, won in the international Metal Expo 2015 contest; the Group representative was awarded a certificate signed by Russian Trade & Industry Minister Denis Manturov at the exhibition’s solemn opening ceremony. The Group’s press service says Eterno is now one of the three finalists in Russia’s Metallurgical Event of the Year Contest; the contest was established in 2011 to support and promote the successful innovative projects in the sector. Every year, a panel of judges (who also coordinate the Metal

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 16, 2015. The Eurasian Economic Committee ruled on November 10, 2015, that protectionist measures should be taken against track-mounted Chinese bulldozers under 250 horsepower strong that get imported to the Eurasian Economic Union, Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s press service reports. An additional customs duty (9% to 44%) will be imposed on Chinese bulldozers for the next five years, which means the end price for customers located in Russia, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia will go up dramatically. As a result, a fair-play-competition market is

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 16, 2015. Power generating unit 4 at Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station is expected to start operating on an industrial scale by the end of 2016, the station’s senior engineer Yuri Nosov says. The unit is currently at its first launching stage, with the power start-up of the unique primary sodium fast reactor BN 800; the reactor will be used as a testing field for a number of closed cycle solutions. The nuclear launch took place in late July 2015. ‘We have by now received a new license for the power-generating unit, which allows us to commence the power start-up

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 13, 2015. 170,205,000 RUR were transferred to Yekaterinburg budget as non-tax revenues in October 2015, the city council reports. For one, this money came from privatization fees (110,158,000 RUR), rent (46,016,000 RUR), and advertising (12,809,000 RUR). ‘The city council keeps looking for extra sources of revenue, so non-tax profits are just as important as the tax-related ones,’ the city council says. Non-tax revenues are those obtained from letting state property or as service fees.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 13, 2015. 585,000 m2 of roads were repaired in Yekaterinburg this year, the city council’s deputy head for urban planning, transportation, and economics Evgeniy Lipovich said at a recent press conference. Lipovich said this was not nearly enough, since there were 13.5m square kilometers of roads in Yekaterinburg altogether, and some 70% needed to be repaired or improved. The official said that at least 2m km2 needed to be fixed every year. 230m RUR were allocated from the city budget for road-building this year. By August 10, twelve repair projects had been

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 13, 2015. The average asking price on Yekaterinburg existing homes market has dropped by 6.1% since the beginning of the year and now comes to 71,555 RUR per m2, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. Prices declined most in the city’s least expensive outskirts (-1.4% in the last four weeks, down to 52,965 RUR per m2). As for the second, third, and fourth most expensive districts, prices went slightly down to 76,026 RUR 65,861 RUR, and 61,583 RUR per m2, respectively, so the decrease, on average, fluctuated within 0.8% to 0.9%. The price of centrally located

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 13, 2015. Yurginsky Plant (an asset of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) and Siberian Coal Company/UKSIB signed a contract for the former to supply the latter with a set of mining equipment for Uvalnaya Mine. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s press service reports their plant was notified of winning in the multi-round supplier selection procedure as early as July. ‘The final decision was taken during the customer representatives’ visit to the plant. They could take a look at the plant’s production facilities and talk with the tech support teams about the most suitable

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 13, 2015. Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant/ChTZ (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) shipped its B10M bulldozer to Armenia; this is the first order shipment to Armenia this year so far, the company press service reports. The mechanical-gear bulldozer is meant for one of the country’s natural gas-producing companies. The vehicle will be used for O&M of pipelines. The delivery was arranged through the plant’s Armenian dealer, which already supplied to such bulldozers to one of the state ministries last year. These two bulldozers are now used for

UrBC, Moscow, November 12, 2015. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is expected to sell over 11m tons of metal goods by the end of the year, including 7.432m tons sold on the home market. This is a little less than in 2014 (11.65m tons), MMK Deputy Director-General for Sales Nikolai Lyadov said at the international Russian Metal Market Conference. Magnitogorsky Metall refers to Lyadov as saying that the slight decrease in sales has to do with dropping domestic demand for metal goods: both the construction and the car-making markets are slimming. Production output in the car-making

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 12, 2015. 3,480 agreements on privatization of housing (overall area 145,000 m2) were registered by Yekaterinburg estate authorities this year so far. The city council reports 190 agreements (overall area 7,455 m2) got signed in October alone. ‘Last year, the number of contracts was 2,800. Now the Russian Government extended the deadline for free-of-charge privatization of property for the fourth time in February 2015. The new deadline expires on March 1, 2016,’ the city council says. Under the Housing Privatization Act adopted on July 4, 1991, the process took

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 12, 2015. Luggage pertaining to U6 3054 Hurghada-Yekaterinburg flight (operated on November 7, 2015) was delivered via a scheduled flight from Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport to Yekaterinburg, MoE’s Sverdlovsk Region division reports. The said luggage, 2,057 kg all in all, got unloaded and seal-protected at Koltsovo Airport’s warehouse. Luggage owners will be notified of the arrival by the airport luggage rescue team and handed their things back starting from November 11. Now the luggage of all Russian travelers coming home from Egypt (with the exception of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 12, 2015. Experts at Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station launched BN 800 Reactor at Power Generating Unit 4 at 10:10 PM on November 10, 2015, the station’s press service reports. The new fast reactor is meant, partially, for experimental use, so the key task at the moment is to acquire expertise and come up with technological solutions for a closed cycle. Based on the results of the trial runs, a decision will be made whether it would be expedient to produce fast reactors on a serial scale. Rostechnadzor recently provided the station with a new operation license

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 12, 2015. ChTPZ Group is going to present its second-generation threaded joints at the International Metal Expo 2015 Exhibition in Moscow on November 10-13, the company press service reports. The Group makes a debut presentation of its second-generation threaded joints that are super-resistant to borehole crooking, compression load, and external pressure and have improved rotation torque characteristics. This year’s theme is dedicated to the five years since White Metallurgy was introduced as the Group’s corporate philosophy. The company stand will feature

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 12, 2015. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation bought a new loco for its head plant’s Volchansky subsidiary. According to the corporation’s press service, the locomotive will be used for transfer of railcars from the plant’s premises to Lesnaya Volchanka Station, from where the trains will complete their designated routes. The transfer used to be outsourced, but now the company will manage the task on its own. The new loco, painted in company colors, has already been delivered to Volchansky subsidiary and is currently undergoing startup and commissioning. A locomotive

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2015. 210 tax crime reports were made to Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Investigative Committee in nine months of 2015. According to the committee’s press service, 69 criminal lawsuits were instituted as a result. 34 cases involve charges of tax evasion by a company (Article 199 of Russia’s Criminal Code). All in all, the committee handled 95 tax crime-related suits between January and September 2015. ‘39 suits were completed within this period and either placed with the court for hearing or dismissed after the accused had paid all their fines and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2015. Yekaterinburg came 6th in the rating of one hundred Russian cities with population over 175,000 people; the rating was carried by Urbanica, an urban planning institute, Expert-Ural reports. Surgut was No.1 on the list, followed by Nizhnevartovsk and Tyumen. The rating was based on such criteria as availability of housing, traffic intensity, up-to-date consumer spending patterns, housing prices, locals’ buying capacity, the scale of housing bills, and crime rate.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2015. As of November 1, 2015, Sverdlovsk Region-based employers owed their workers 14,702,000 RUR in delayed wages and salaries, Sverdlovskstat reports. It is reported the number is 25.4 times more than in the previous quarter and 2.7 times more than a year earlier. Most of the workers whose wages haven’t been paid in time are employed within the processing industry sector: 460 employees are owed 13.4m RUR all in all. Also, 140 people working in the production and distribution of electric power, natural gas, and water are owed 1.268m RUR.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2015. Following a ban on Egypt-bound flights, Yekaterinburg travel market might halve in size, Director of Nathalie Tours Yekaterinburg Oleg Khiger said at a press conference. ‘Things look grave enough. The economic recession has already resulted in a 50% drop in the number of travel agents in the summer, and those that did remain afloat had to lay off staff. Now this diminished market will halve again. With Egypt no longer an option, we’ll have nothing to offer to at least 50% of our wintertime travelers. Naturally, neither Sochi nor the Crimea, let alone

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2015. Representatives of Ural Vagon Zavod Scientific & Production Corporation and of UVZ-Logistik met with delegates from Cuban Railway Union and El Grupo Empresarial de la Industria Sidero Mecánica (GESIME) to discuss their prospective joint venture. The corporation’s press service reports the Cuban delegates paid a visit to UVZ-Logistik’s head office to get acquainted with the company’s operation technology and the way the freight forwarders manages its 40,000-plus railcars. The host company’s representatives also made a presentation on their experience