OREANDA-NEWS. On 26 May 2008 was announced, that the festive opening of the Company’s newest brewery, Baltika-Novosibirsk, was held in the city of Novosibirsk. The new facility has the latest generation equipment from the industry’s best suppliers and can produce world-class products. The completed project represents an investment of 134 million Euros.

Anton Artemiev, President of Baltika Breweries, commented as follows: ‘Baltika-Novosibirsk is a 134-million Euro investment in innovation, capacity and quality. The project is significant both for Siberia and for the Company, given that it is the largest regional investment project in our entire history. The new brewery will result in a tax contribution of around 6 billion rubles to the regional budget during just the first 5 years of its operation.’

‘Green field’ construction of the plant made it possible to create a high technology enterprise and to locate optimally the production buildings and infrastructure taking into account experience of building modern new breweries in Europe. More than 745 new jobs were created.

The brewery’s production capacity of 4.5 million hectolitres of beer per year is assured by two brewing units, 16 fermentation tanks, 68 conical-cylindrical tanks, four filling lines (two PET-lines, one can line and one glass bottle line). A multi-faceted infrastructure was created to serve the plant: a water treatment facility, cooler-compressor station, boiler, purification installations, our own grain elevator and new railway spur lines.

Baltika-Novosibirsk will produce at least 15 varieties of beer, including the Company’s key brands Baltika№3, Baltika №7, Arsenalnoye and Yarpivo, as well as the recently created Baltika LITE variety and the licensed beer Tuborg. Especially for residents of Siberia, the brewery has launched the regional brand Sibirsky Bochonok.

To ensure the world quality standards of beer production, the Novosibirsk plant has been supplied with the most up-to-date equipment from the world’s leading manufacturers: Huppmann, Ziemann, Geo Grasso, Krones, Simonazzi, Enviro Chemie, PALL SeitzSchenk, GEA Tuchenhagen and Kuenzel, among others.

This very large Baltika project will facilitate the development of business in the region by providing local companies with orders. Evrostroy, Stalprom, Nolekom-Montazh, InTekhStroy and Biznesstroy all took part in the construction. Baltika is actively collaborating with Novosibirsk companies that will be suppliers of raw materials to the brewery: the Ekran factory, Taiger Ltd (glass bottles), Polimer Ltd, Sibirsky Polietilen (shrink-wrap plastic films), Megaplast Ltd, Retal CJSC, Evroplast (pre-forms), Sital Ltd (labels), Altaikrovlia (corrugated packaging). Partnership in the area of logistics is being developed with the companies Premier, Russkaya Logisticheskaya Kompaniya, Irkutskaya Gruzovaya Kompaniya, SibirTrans, as well as with the companies for servicing warehousing equipment Mirograd and Spetstekhnika Servis — Region Sibir. By drawing local organisations into the project, additional jobs have been created in the region.

The Baltika-Novosibirsk subsidiary is actively participating in the life of the region. It provides support to ecological campaigns in the city, for several years now Baltika has been assisting veterans in the Novosibirsk society ‘Blokadnik’ and has helped the city’s sports clubs.

Sergei Skoromkin, Director of the Baltika-Novosibirsk, had the following to say: ‘Our Company participates in the social life of regions where Baltika breweries operate. I am certain that following the launch of the Baltika-Novosibirsk plant we will join the local government and public organisations to do much that is useful for the residents of Novosibirsk.’