VIZ Stal buys metallurgical plant’s 70.93% shareholding

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state environmental watchdog) carried out a scheduled inspection of VIZ Stal on March 17-31, 2008. The inspection was targeted at checking the enterprise’s compliance with the existing water code, the spokesperson for Rosprirodnadzor says. The inspection revealed that VIZ Stal was using the water from Verkh-Isetskiy water reservoir and was dumping manufacturing water in the River Iset without any permission to do so. Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rosprirodnadzor therefore initiated an administrative lawsuit against the offender. The

Nikolai Krupinin, Deputy Head of Ural Federal District’s division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) chaired a meeting on the results of checking VIZ Stal’s compliance with the existing conservational and environmental regulations. The enterprise was inspected in this respect between February 11, 2008 and March 6, 2008, the spokesperson for Ural Federal District’s division of Rostechnadzor says. It was revealed in the course of the inspection that the enterprise was guilty of some grave environmental offenses, therefore VIZ Stal was ordered

VIZ Stal reports Duferco Group has agreed to sell a 70% shareholding of Verkh-Isetskiy Metallurgical Plant. However, the transaction is still subject to further negotiations and will probably have been finalized by the end of the year.

OOO VIZ-Stal (part of NLMK Group) came up with a project on the technical upgrade of its waste water treatment facility. Upon the completion of the project, the plant will stop dumping waste water in the River Iset altogether. ‘The amount of waste water dumped by the plant at the moment actually fits within the maximum permissible discharge limits and comes to about 0.05% of the total amount of pollutants dumped in water bodies in Yekaterinburg. The plant currently recycles 95% of its water, whereas the average figure for the city’s industrial sites comes to only 65%. VIZ-Stal does not exceed

‘The economic crisis has left VIZ-Stal (as well as most metallurgical enterprises) with the plummeting demand for its produce. The drop was particularly felt in the first quarter of the year,’ says the company’s Deputy GD Sergey Makurov. ‘Our action plan provides for decreasing all the non-manufacturing costs and making our production process more efficient. Then, we are still trying to reach the optimal staff balance (as we have been doing since 2007, in fact). This actually means 2,271 to 2,200 people will probably have been made redundant by July 1, 2009. No more workers will be fired