UralmashSpetsstal Ltd. (part of United Machine Building Works (aka OMZ (Obedinennye Mashinostroitelnye Zavody, formerly United Heavy Machinery)) and Shanghai Electric E&A Industrial Development Co. Ltd. signed a contract providing for the delivery of $4m worth of backup rolls with 4% chromium content in 2007, reports the spokesperson for UralmashSpetsstal.

Shanghai Electric E&A Industrial Development Co. Ltd. deals in metallurgical equipment production; this is why it is interested in the rolls and other pieces of equipment produced by UralmashSpetsstal.

UralmashSpetsstal Ltd. has been cooperating with other Chinese companies as well; the company delivered some high-chromium steel rolls to Tangshan Iron and Steel Co. Ltd, Shougang Group, and Tainjin Cold Strip Mill in 2006. In addition, UralmashSpetsstal Ltd. will be supplying Handan Iron and Steel with rolls starting February 2007.

‘We have become one of the few Russian enterprises that supply the not-so-easy Chinese market with our hi-tech produce, whereas most Russian businesses are now importing goods from China rather than the other way around. We’ve been good partners with the Chinese roll-producing plants (such as their First and Second heavy engineering plants) and design institutes. Our Chinese counterparts are exciting to work with; we are mutually interested in cooperating, given particularly that the Russian-Chinese relations are now even better: the year 2006 was declared the Year of Russia in China and the year 2007 was declared the Year of China in Russia,’ says General Director of UralmashSpetsstal Ltd. Dmitriy Stadnichenko.