OREANDA-NEWS. October 23, 2009.   Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has signed an order requiring the Russian Federation Ministry of Finance to enter into an agreement with Uralkali and Silvinit whereby the companies pay 6.454 billion roubles to the federal budget, of which 5.454 billion roubles would be paid by Uralkali and 1 billion roubles by Silvinit.

As previously reported by Uralkali, in December 2008 the company  offered voluntarily to reimburse the government, in line with its commitment to social responsibility, the expenses incurred by all levels of government in relation to the Mine 1 accident as well as to reimburse the costs of the Russian Railways for the construction of two bypass railway links. Uralkali had initially estimated these expenses to be about 3 billion roubles.

A meeting chaired by Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin in March 2009 discussed the financing of expenses related to the Mine 1 accident. At the meeting, Uralkali’s management reiterated its intention to reimburse the costs of all levels of government. The total costs were estimated at 2.8 billion roubles, including 454 million roubles spent by Russian Railways to construct a 6-kilometer bypass. At this meeting Uralkali also expressed its willingness to cover the shortfall in the cost of construction of a 53-kilometer railroad bypass (Silvinit agreed to allocate 1 billion roubles for this purpose).

Dmitry Rybolovlev, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Uralkali:

“This spring, we have already paid 2.3 billion roubles to reimburse the expenses of all levels of government related to the accident. At the same time, we offered financing to cover the shortfall in the cost of the construction of the Yayva-Solikamsk railroad bypass, which is extremely important for the development of the entire Berezniki-Solikamsk industrial hub. The company is ready to sign an agreement with the Ministry of Finance as soon as possible and pay the outstanding amounts in due course.”