South Ural TransTelecom CJSC held the annual general meeting on June 20, 2006. The meeting resulted in approving of the company’s annual accounting report, including the profit and loss statement. The stockholders agreed on the profit distribution, with net profit coming to 34.09 million RUR, and decided to use this money to pay the dividends for 2005 as well as to invest in the company’s development. In addition, the shareholders got acquainted with the annual report for 2005 presented by the General Director Segey Kudryavtsev. RSM Top Audit Ltd. was elected the company’s auditor. The

Russian Chrome 1915 CJSC of Pervouralsk, Sverdlovsk Region, held the extraordinary shareholder meeting on June 26, 2006, reports the company’s spokesperson. The shareholders elected the new Board (Francesco Di Castri, Alfredo Parodi, Paolo Minghetti, Nikolai Oborski, Leonid Rogotovskiy, and Viktor Rytvin). They also decided to extend the contract with GD Milosc Manoilovitch for another year. The annual general meeting was scheduled for July 2006; the points on the agenda include assessment of the company’s success in 2005 as well as the issue of delegating the sole executive powers to Russian

Magnitogorskmezhraigaz JSC, the regional gas supplier, has recently held the annual general meeting attended by the shareholders and their representatives possessing 96.79% of the company’s voting common stock. The absolute majority of the attendees approved of the company’s annual report, the accounting report, including the P&L statement. They also decided to pass a dividend for 2005. The shareholders elected the new Board, namely, Vadim Belousov, Anton Nastavnyuk, Dmitriy Seleznev, Alexander Vyshegorodtsev, Natalia Yurevitch, Valeriy Yurevitch, and Dmitriy Zhukov. VSP Audit was elected

‘Within the first five months of 2006, the spirituous liquors output of our company decreased by 30% down to .12m decalitres,’ said Alexander Batuev, Research and Development Director of South Ural Vodka Distillery JSC of Ozyorsk, Chelyabinsk Region. ‘The overall setback in spirituous liquors production within Russia comes to 47%,’ Mr Batuev indicated. ‘The legislative novations had a negative effect on all the players on the spirituous liquors market, including the manufacturers, the wholesale traders, and the retailers. On July 1, the number of market participants will go down rapidly. From

Beloyarskaya nuclear power station hosted the meeting of RosEnergoAtom and Électricité de France Coordinating Board on June 21 to June 23, 2006. The Russian party was comprised by the management of RosEnergoAtom, Beloyarskaya nuclear power station, Volgodonskaya nuclear power station, AtomTrudResource and AtomTechEnergo, the French party was represented by the executives of various departments of Électricité de France. The attendees updated each other on the state of events in the nuclear industries of the two countries and discussed their cooperation opportunities. The French experts had a

Chelyabinsk Steel Sheet Plant JSC has recently held the annual general meeting that resulted in approving of the company’s annual report for 2005, the annual accounting report, including the profit and loss statement. The shareholders agreed on the profit distribution and decided to pass the ordinary share dividend for 2005. They also elected the Board, namely, I. Boyarchuk, V. Savrasov, I. Svezhentsev, V. Sirotkin, and K. Scherbakov. Audit Classic Ltd. was elected the company’s auditor.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of investments drawn to accounts of NGOs and non-profit organizations in UralTransBank JSC for a term of 1 to 3 years has gone down by 74 % (from 66.370 million RUR to 17.136 million) throughout January 1, 2006 to May 1, 2006.

Chelyabinsk Coal Company JSC fails to meet its liabilities concerning settling the accounts with their electricity suppliers. The company’s indebtedness comes to 65.4m RUR, which equals to its payments within two settlement periods. This was reported to UrBC representative by the PR-department of Chelyabenergosbyt JSC (the electricity supplier). The supplier has taken some steps against the defaulter. The nature of measures excludes creating emergencies in the town of Kopeysk, where the defaulter is located, but can make the defaulter feel rather uncomfortable. To date, Chelyabinsk Coal

Following the previously declared strategy of a gradual buy-out, Mechel JSC Chairman Igor Zyuzin raised his share holding up to 65.8% through a number of private transactions. The amount of publicly offered shares now comes to over 23%.

Zinc Plant of Chelyabinsk JSC received the labour safety certificate from Russia’s Ministry of Public Health and Social Development in June 2006. As the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative, this award was preceded by a lot of efforts by the company’s technicians who had to evaluate and classify all the workplaces on the basis of the possible dangerous and harmful factors present there. The Metallurgical Labour Safety Research Institute examined all the documents produced by the plant as to their compliance with the labour safety requirements. For instance, they assessed the

The Board meetings that took place at Tube Rolling Plant of Chelyabinks JSC and Tube Works of Pervouralsk JSC on June 23, 2006, resulted in the decision to buy their registered ordinary shares at 30 RUR and 600 RUR, respectively. The terms of the acquisition provide for buying no more than 46,293,522 shares issued by Tube Rolling Plant of Chelyabinks JSC and no more than 1,703,806 shares issued by Tube Works of Pervouralsk JSC. The shares are expected to have been acquired within the period of July 28, 2006 to October 26, 2006.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of investments drawn to accounts of NGOs and non-profit organizations in UralTransBank JSC for a term of 181 days to 1 year has gone down by 70 % (from 2.5 million RUR to 740,000 RUR) throughout January 1, 2006 to May 1, 2006.

Vysokogorsky Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise (VGOK JSC, member of Evraz Group) has acquired a new frontlift for its crane and tractor fleet. The new vehicle is high-powered and very mobile. It steers easily and requires no engineering changes. The frontlift carrying capacity is 72 tons. It will be employed at Vysokogorsky processing plant during the dunite transshipping and road metal shipping operations as well as in the processing chain of Lebyazhinsky sintering plant. The existing loader fleet of VGOK consists of 41 vehicles, but none of them is as powerful as the new frontlift.

The new Test Tower Unit was put into operation at the processing shop of Vanadium ore mining and processing enterprise of Kachkanar (part of Evraz Group); the unit is meant for defining the iron content in the ore and as well as for determining its fineness. The project was designed and developed by the experts of a planning and design office in cooperation with the company’s Quality Management Department. This is why this unit is genuinely unique and fully adapted to the production specifications of the enterprise. Vanadium JSC is also hoping to create analogous units for sampling of pellets

Most of the dramatic outcomes of a black oil spill at the premises of Asha Metallurgical Works have by now been coped with, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Emergency Management in Chelyabinsk Region said to UrBC representative. The emergency team completed the shoreline restoration of the River Sim yesterday. They collected some 27 tons of putrefied soil and restored over 8 kilometers of the shoreline. On June 7, 2006, at least 10 tons of black oil spilled from the mazout line located at the plant. This environmentally hazardous substance penetrated the local rivers Teplushka and Sim and

A meeting of Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Viktor Basargin with Board Member of RAO UES of Russia Boris Weinsiekher took place in Surgut. The two executives discussed the power engineering development problems in the Urals as well as the region’s potential within the program of United Energy System of Russia up to 2010, reports the spokesperson for Plenipotentiary Representation of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District. Mr Basargin also conducted a session of the inter-departmental commission on power engineering

‘Introduction of Calling Party Pays (CPP) system will lead to the following distribution of the voice traffic income: 68% of it will immediately go to the cellular communication operator whose network is servicing the called subscriber, the remaining 32% of income will mainly cover the call delivery expenses borne by Uralsvyazinform that is servicing the stationary phone communication. The losses of this distribution cannot be entirely compensated. We expect that only 40% of losses of Utel, the cellular communication operator owned by Uralsvyazinform, will be compensated by the future

Mechel JSC reports to have floated the second bonded debt at Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX). The annual first coupon interest rate (in the first bond issue) came to 8.4%. The bond issue has been fully placed by the end of the first day. As the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative, the bonds were offered at 100% of their face value. The annual first coupon interest rate ranged between 7.95% and 8.65%. 28 applications were accepted altogether, with 5 million bonds having been sold. The auction demand came to 5,440 million RUR. The money thus obtained is meant for

Vysokogorsky Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise (VGOK JSC, member of Evraz Group) held a meeting with RAO Russian Railways representatives. The main question touched upon during the meeting was the transportation of VGOK production from the town of Kushva according to a specially designed schedule. The need for development of railroad freight activity between the stations of Blagodat and Smychka results from an increase in density of production traffic from Goroblagodatsky pit to the industrial area of Nizhny Tagil. Every day, a number of passenger trains, ore trains, and wagons carrying

Utel cellular communication operator did not register some of the base stations that the company installed within the current year. This was reported to UrBC representative by the Head of Chelyabinsk Regional Office of Russian State Supervision Service Lyudmila Ryzhova. According to Ms Ryzhova, this kind of state regulations violation can be found in activities of other cellular communication operators as well. ‘When an operator purchases a base station, it has to coordinate the station frequency-assignment for the territory where it is installed. The coordination procedure is rather