Stop Jerking Us Around!

The Western press has its own point of view about Russian companies

One can jerk people around forever if one has unlimited information opportunities. Unfortunately, the Russian people are not really good in foreign languages. They are not really interested in the leadership of the world’s metal markets either. Russians basically want a winter to pass by quickly, and they want to buy New Year presents for their relatives and family, and that’s all, basically.

The Russian people’s interests and demands are rather far from daily issues of the Russian business press. That is why the company Russian Aluminium can keep on playing games with the Russian people. However, there is an objective business press in the world, which is not subjected either to black or white PR influence.

For instance, there is the Metal Bulletin metallurgical magazine. One can find true information about the current state of things with Russian companies . The latest issue of the magazine contains ratings, according to which the Russian Aluminium is far from being the leading company in the metallurgical field.

Norilsk Nickel has taken the third position for three years running. Yet, Metal Bulletin wrote that the cost of Norilsk Nickel’s production dropped by nearly one billion dollars in the year 2001. However, the information, which was received from the company itself, eloquently shows that the industrial output of nickel, copper, and cobalt increased in 2001 vs. 2000. However, the considerable reduction of the prices of those metals allowed the Russian Mining and Metallurgical Factory to get closer to Anglo American (Great Britain, South Africa) and to Alcoa (the USA). These companies took the first and the second places respectively.

Norilsk Nickel increased the production of such metals as nickel in 2001 by five thousand tons in comparison with the year 2000. Yet, the cost of the produced metal dropped by $580 million. The same happened to platinum metals. Their production increased, but the cost was cut by almost 220 million dollars.

The company Russian Aluminium took the fourth position among other Russian companies. SUAL Holding – Siberian and Ural Aluminium Company - was in the top 30 as well. SUAL is Russian Aluminium’s competitor at the moment.

PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov