August 11, 2003 - A senior Russian zinc lobby official said Thursday that the country's dilapidated and loss-making Belovo zinc plant will close soon after years of fruitless searching for a buyer.  Output at the plant, Russia's third-largest zinc company, which lags far behind industry heavyweights Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant and Elektrotsink, has been in decline in recent years and the firm has been losing millions of rubles.  "I spoke to a senior Belovo official recently and he told me the plant was practically dead. They've effectively shut down operations already or will do so very soon, in coming weeks," the official from the Moscow-based Zinc Development Center said.  A Belovo official at the company's headquarters in Siberia's remote Kemerovo region could not confirm or deny that the plant was to shut down soon.

"We can't publicly say anything about this yet," he said.  The plant, built in 1931 as part of Stalin's industrialization drive, was declared bankrupt in 2000 and put up for sale. It has so far failed to find a buyer.  "They simply haven't got the cash to survive," the source in the zinc lobby said. "In Soviet times they did pretty well as the state used to transport raw materials to them from all over Russia, but after the fall of Soviet rule transport costs have eaten badly into revenues."   Several companies, including Swiss-based metals trader Euromin, considered investing in Belovo, but decided against it. Industry insiders said the poor condition of the plant's facilities was to blame.  "Basically, the only thing you can do is rebuild the plant from scratch, but that's not feasible because of its unfortunate geographic location," the source said. "Once Belovo is gone, the Russian zinc industry will basically only have two main producers - Chelyabinsk and Elektrotsink," the lobby official said.

November 16, 2001 - Russia's Belovo zinc plant produced 2,165 tons of metallic zinc and zinc powder in the first nine months of 2001, up from 2,069 tons in the same period of 2000, the plant's executive director said.  Igor Nozdrin declined to give the breakdown of the two products' output.  Nozdrin said that the plant continued to suffer losses due to weak world non-ferrous metals prices and he expected it to produce less metal this year than last year.  The plant produced 3,950 tons of both metallic zinc and zinc powder in 2000. Situated in Siberia's Kemerovo region, it was declared bankrupt more than a year ago, but it has failed to find a buyer so far.

August 31, 2001 - Igor Nozdrin, executive director of the Belovo zinc plant in Russia, says that the facility is still looking for a buyer, after three potential purchasers withdrew from the sale. The company was offered for sale last year (2000), attracting three interested parties.  Mr Nozdrin did not give the reason for the withdrawal of the potential buyers.