ChTPZ Group’s pipe-making enterprises reorganized and improved their maintenance services, the spokesperson for the Group said to UrBC. Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant and Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant, for example, needed one year to merge all the services meant for various shops in single maintenance centers. The idea behind these mergers was to cut down on costs through more effective cooperation among the main production shops and the auxiliary services.

At the moment, the two plants’ maintenance centers employ over 6,000 people, who have to provide the shops with tools and equipment and spare parts as well as do repairs and overhauls on a regular basis. The Group is planning to turn these centers into independent entities by 2009.