OREANDA-NEWS. November 12, 2008. The Board of Directors of OAO Raspadskaya (RTS and MICEX: RASP and which is, one of Russia’s leading coking coal producers) has announced today its recommendation for payment of an interim dividend.

1. To call an extraordinary general meeting of OAO Raspadskaya with absentee voting on 24th December 2008.

2. To recommend to OAO Raspadskaya’s EGM the payment of an interim dividend for the the nine months ended 30th September 2008 in the amount of 1,50 roubles per ordinary share. Payment to be made by 21st February 2009.

3. To set 14th November 2008 as the date on which the list of persons entitled to participate in the EGM will be drawn up.

Raspadskaya’s CEO, Gennady Kozovoy made the following comments:

“From the beginning of October 2008 our large Russian customers significantly cut their plans for production of steel and coke. As a result of this we expect our sales in 4Q 2008 will be only one third of the budgeted amounts.
Furthermore, because they have problems with their customers for steel and coke and because of their consequent liquidity problems, payments of steelmakers since September amount to 21 % of amounts shipped.

The Board of Directors decided to propose a modest dividend which on the one hand reflects the success of the company in the first 9 months of the year whilst, on the other hand, does not endanger the financial stability of the company in the coming difficult months”.