OREANDA-NEWS. On September 25, 2007 Mincom, a leading global software and services provider to mining and metals industries, announced it has signed a new large scale long term contract with the world's largest nickel producer, MMC Norilsk Nickel ("Norilsk"), reported the press-centre of Norilsk Nickel.

Under this agreement, Mincom Ellipse is assigned as the standard solution for mining and metallurgical sites of Norilsk's Polar Division, located in Norilsk. Mincom Enterprise Mining Solution for the mining and metals industry, is a modular, fully intergrated solution, providing extensive functionality in the area of asset management, materials/supply chain and maintenance management, in combination with management of financial flows and personnel.

Mincom Ellipse will be implemented to manage operational activities in underground mining and above-ground management areas and workshops, and will provide real-time visibility of operational and financial metrics across the organization. Accordingly this solution will support Norilsk in making optimal management decisions.

Yuri Filippov, Director of Production of Norilsk, said, "Norilsk chose to extend its partnership with Mincom because it's products are a suitable solution for the mining industry, due to their experience and competent support staff. This has been demonstrated by the successful completion of previous projects on time and on budget. Our key objective is to increase shareholder value and one of the ways to achieve this, is to introduce cutting edge technologies facilitating higher efficiency of business operations and executive decision-making."

Allen Vaughn, President of Eurasia, said, "Norilsk is Mincom's strategic customer in the region and we appreciate our partnership with them as we continue to build our operations in the Russian speaking world. The continuing globalisation of the mining industry, accelerated by the rapid growth in regions like Eastern Europe has increased demand and competition for commercial software in the region. Mincom's success in these enormous markets demonstrates it has responded well to these demanding market conditions".

Norilsk became Mincom's customer in December 2003 and since then it has progressively implemented the Mincom Ellipse system. During the past three and a half years of cooperation a number of large projects were successfully carried out. These included implementation of a maintenance management system for mobile mining equipment in all the mines of Norilsk's Polar Division, as well as an asset management module at the Taymyrsky and Oktjabrsky mines. The solution developed during this projects and the standards and experience will help Norilsk to carry out a full implementation of the system over the next three years.

Moreover Norilsk represents the largest user of Mincom MineScape in Russia. MineScape is an integrated solution for geological modeling and mine planning that Oktjabrsky, the biggest European multi-metal mine, has been using since 2005. Implementation of this solution is planned at all mines of the Polar Division. Enhancements to the system have been made jointly in order to satisfy the requirements of Russian legislation and this system has successfully received certification from RosTechNadzor for use in Norilsk's mines.