OREANDA-NEWS. October 30, 2007. OAO ARMADA (MICEX, RTS: ARMD) announces that it has been successfully developing procurement solutions and has won a number of contracts to implement electronic trading platforms in Mechel Group and Amurmetal, major participants of Russia's metallurgical market. These are ARMADA’s first projects of this kind since the group acquired ETC, the leading developer of e-procurement systems.

“We are happy with ETC’s progress in its integration into ARMADA Group, and we expect a steady growth of our e-procurement business both by attracting new clients and promoting ETC’s services among the group’s existing customers. Cooperation with Mechel and Amurmetal will help us to create a tailored solution for the metallurgical industry, which we could offer to other companies operating on this market,” ARMADA’s General Director Alexei Kuzovkin said.

According to the contracts signed in October with the parent company and five subsidiaries of Mechel holding, ARMADA will deliver and install electronic platform for orders placement management. The solution is intended to optimize the complicated process of placing orders for raw materials delivery.

The contract with Amurmetal implies the development of an electronic trading platform, which is aimed to improve the relations with the company’s suppliers and also implement a transparent procurement policy on the threshold of the IPO.

The total value of the contracts amounts to RUR15m (approx. $603 thsd.) and it will take several months to complete the installation of the software. ARMADA is currently cooperating in various fields with the top Russian metallurgical companies, such as Evraz, Severstal and United Metallurgical Company (OMK).