OREANDA-NEWS. April 08, 2010. Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant (LSE, RTS, MICEX: CHZN) increases its investment program for 2010 and reports the results of a review of inventory levels.

On March 22, 2010, the Board of Directors of CZP unanimously decided to increase CZP’s investment program in 2010 by RUB 111 mln to a total of RUB 622 mln (excluding subsidiaries). These additional funds will be used to reconstruct the cake filtration area in the hydrometallurgical plant with the installation of two additional automatic filter-presses, thereby eliminating one of the bottlenecks in the technological process and providing total production capacity of at least 160 thousand tonnes of salable SHG zinc in 2011.

The Board of Directors also reviewed the results of the review of inventory as at October 01, 2009. As a result of this review, a shortage of zinc concentrate and zinc cake has been identified, and, consequently, CZP estimates that its 2009 IFRS Financial Statements will include a write-down of inventory of approximately RUB 180 mln. A working group comprising representatives of the Audit Commission of CZP has been formed for a detailed study of the causes of the shortage together with representatives of CZP’s independent auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers.