Head of the Federal Environmental, Technological, and Nuclear Surveillance Service of the Russian Federation Nikolai Kutyin confirmed a timetable for carrying out scheduled inspections of various Russian enterprises in 2010.

For one, the Service’s head office and its regional branches are going to carry out thorough inspections of OAO NK Rosneft, OOO Evraz Holding, OAO Uralkhim, OAO Lukoil, and OAO Gazprom. The companies will be checked for compliance with the industrial safety requirements.

As it happens, an explosion occurred at Evraz’s Yestyuninskaya mine based in Nizhniy Tagil, Sverdlovsk Region on December 23, 2009, leaving nine people killed. So the local investigative authorities instituted criminal proceedings regarding this accident, with charges based on Article 216 (part 3) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code: violation of mining, construction, or other safety requirements that leads to death of two or more people trough negligence.