OREANDA-NEWS. On 05 March 2009 was announced, that in Vyksa, Nizhni Novgorod Region, United Metallurgical Company (OMK) held the sixth annual ceremony for bestowing awards of the Foundation named after Ivan and Andrey Batashevs, who founded Vyksa Steel Works (VSW, part of OMK). The awards were granted to 42 best employees. For this purpose, the Ivan and Andrey Batashevs Foundation allocated 5.6 million rubles.

For the first time over the past three years, the Expert Committee headed by Anatoly Sedykh, Chairman of the OMK Board of Directors, has given the Foundation's highest awards, the First Prize and Gold Medal. Based on the 2008 results, these awards went to Konstantin Pityul, Executive Director of OMK-Steel Subsidiary, for his substantial contribution to the development of OMK's business and successful management of the CRC (Casting and Rolling Complex) project. The Foundation's Second Prizes and Silver Medals for successful project implementation were granted to Aleksandr Barykov, Head of the VSW Electric Pipe-Welding Facilities for Large-Diameter Pipes (LDP EPWF), and Vasily Lukyanov, OMK-Project Director for Construction and Installation Management.

Based on the 2008 results, the Committee also announced top specialists in the following 13 categories: Top Pipe Specialist, Top Metallurgist, Top Maintenance Specialist, Top Business Specialist, Top Economist, Top Engineer, Top Social Worker, Top Professional, Top Functional Manager, Top Young Specialist, Top Project Manager, Top Worker, and Top Training Specialist. In each category, one winner and two candidates were named.

"The projects evaluated during this ceremony are noted for their large scale and special breakthrough significance for OMK," said Anatoly Sedykh. "The year 2008 was successful for our Company. We launched CRC, Russia's unique metallurgical facility built over the past 25 years using the world's most state-of-the-art technologies. We also completed our LDP facility, which can annually produce up to 2 million tonnes of pipes whose quality would be second to none worldwide." The people whom we have awarded today are the 'crиme de la crиme' of our Company. They made the greatest contribution in its development in 2008 and, in many ways, thanks to them our Company is pulling through this crisis with minimal losses."

The awards were presented by the heads of OMK and VSW, representatives of government authorities and the business community, and renowned scientists, workers of culture, and athletes. They included President of the Russian Union of Metal Exporters Serafim Afonin, Associate of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikolay Arsenyev, Rector of the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys Dmitry Livanov, People's Artist of Russia Vitaly Konyayev (The State Academic Maly Theatre of Russia), World Sambo Champion Sergey Shibanov, and others.

The Foundation named after the Batashev brothers was established in October 2003 by OMK's shareholders to encourage VSW's most talented and proactive employees for significant contributions to the Company's development and maintain historical traditions of Russia's oldest   metallurgical center. The first Batashevs Foundation Award Ceremony was held in 2004. Starting from this year, in accordance with the decision by the OMK management, contests under the Batashevs Foundation will cover employees of all of the Vyksa pipe and metallurgic facilities, including VSW, its subsidiaries, and the Casting and Rolling Complex (CRC, OMK-Steel Subsidiary).