Uralmash

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For other uses of "Uralmash", see Uralmash (disambiguation).

A bucket of one of the first Uralmash dragline excavators with a parked Pobeda car there, 1952

Uralmash (Russian: Уральский Машиностроительный завод - Уралмаш / Uralsky Mashinostroitelny zavod, Ural Machine-building plant) is a located in Yekaterinburg, Russia heavy machine production facility of Russian engineering corporation OMZ.

[edit] History

The Ural Heavy Machine Building Plant (Uralmashzavod or UZTM) was put into operation in 1933 in compliance with the plans of the Government of the USSR for industrialization of the country. During the pre-war period, Uralmash manufactured its products (blast furnace equipment, sintering machines, rolling mills, presses, cranes, etc.) for the mining and metallurgical enterprises, created in the Urals and Siberia. The major part of these products was produced on the individual designs. Simultaneously the plant has developed the military equipment and at the end of thirties the plant began to manufacture howitzers M-30 of F.F. Petrov (122 mm bore) design.

During the World War II the large-scale production of armoured materiel was organized at the plant at first it manufactured armoured tank hulls, then tanks T-34 and gun tanks destroyers SU-122, SU-85, SU-100 on the basis of tank T-34. The self-propelled gun mounts, built at Uralmash, demonstrated their effectiveness on the battle-fields, because they successfully combined manoeuvrability of tanks T-34 with huge fire power of ordnance pieces.

After the war the state carried out considerable investments in reconstruction and expansion of Uralmash plant. This modernisation favoured both increased output and production of new machines and equipment: shovels, drilling rigs, crushers and mills.

In fifties the state began to realize the program of equipping the aviation and rocket industry with heavy hydraulic presses. In connection with this program, Uralmash created a range of various machines to satisfy completely the industry demands in this equipment.

In 1949 the plant produced the first dragline excavator. In sixties the plant designs and manufactures the draglines with booms, 90-100 m long. Now more than 200 walking draglines function at mines in Siberia and Far East. One third of the total coal amount produced by open casting is mined with the help of draglines.

The drilling rigs manufactured by URALMASH were of prime importance in development of oil and gas regions of the USSR, including West Siberia with its severe climate. The extradeep drilling rigs, designed and manufactured at the plant made it possible to reach the depth of 13 km (at the Kola Superdeep Borehole) and for the first time to obtain unique samples of rock, the age of which accounts more than 3 billion years. URALMASH designs also off-shore drilling equipment.

In December 1992 according to the laws of the Russian Federation URALMASH was transformed into an open-end joint stock company "The Ural Heavy Machine Building Plant". In 1996 it became part of OMZ, one of the largest Russian engineering corporation whos founder and first CEO was Kakha Bendookidze.

In February 2007 OMZ and Metalloinvest have agreed on the creation of a common manufacturing complex. OMZ will contribute its holdings in URALMASH to the joint venture (JV) while Metalloinvest will contribute its holdings in ORMETO-YuUMZ. The consolidation of the assets situated on two manufacturing sites, in Yekaterinburg and Orsk, will result in the creation of a large machine-building conglomerate with a leading position in the CIS metallurgical equipment market. The joint market share of ORMETO-YuUMZ and URALMASH in the metallurgical equipment segment in Russia exceeds 40%, which would make the JV a leader in the fast-growing domestic market of metallurgical equipment upgrades, modernization and servicing.

Present Director of URALMASH is Nazim Efendiev.