The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs declared the results of its Best Russian Enterprises contest for 2009.

The winners and the nominees received their awards during the Russian Business Week (which is the Union’s key event in the field of state-private cooperation).

OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) won the competition in the Best Innovational Project category, the company’s PR Department reports.

Last year, MMK completed a major investment project on putting up a hi-tech plate iron production facility on its premises. This plate iron is popular with the O&G industry as well as with the bridge- and ship-building companies. The facility comprises the unique plate Mill 5000, capable of producing 1.5 million tons of goods a year, the CC machine No.6, and an out-of-furnace steel processing unit. The launch of the facility, put up in accordance with the latest machine-building technologies, makes it possible for MMK to produce good quality, competitive goods which are currently not manufactured anywhere else in Russia and which can meet both the existing and the prospective demand of the company’s key consumers, mostly the OCTG producers. Besides, the Mill 5000 allows for the manufacturing of virtually any kind of plate steel that will meet all the requirements of OAO Gazprom and OAO Transneft. Among these requirements are: wall thickness up to 50mm and strength performance up to Х120. What is more, the mill’s technological parameters make it possible to produce oil platforms that could be used in the Arctic climate, to manufacture elements of bridges and boilers, and to make ship steel for tankers, the Russian Navy, and modern ice-class vessels.