OREANDA-NEWS. July 24, 2007. MIRAX GROUP and ArcelorMettal held a conference on European building steel construction design standards for recommending regulatory actions in the Russian Federation. More than 70 specialists took part in the conference: Russian metallurgists, as well as a delegation from ArcelorMettal headed by managing director Mr. Pierre Bourier. A working commission which is going to deal with European standards regulatory actions in Russia had been created as a follow up to the event.

The MIRAX GROUP executive board president - Artur Aleksandrov, the managing director of ArcelorMettal - Mr. Pierre Bourier, the committee president of TK-464 “Stroitelstvo” - Larisa Barinova, the director of Melnikov Central Institute for Scientific Research Project Development Company - Andrej Pavlov were chosen to be commission co-chairpersons. Now the co-chairpersons will have to select the composition of the commission and also present the budget estimates and the work schedule.

One crucially important question for consumers and investors was raised by conference organizers: how can we live by uniform standards and by our own, European, American standards that now require all kinds of approvals. Help us build rationally, without wasting time for approvals”,  - in his speech asked Vyacheslav Blinov – the technological regulation managing director of the Central Institute for Scientific Research Project Development Company. 

Presentations by participants grew into full discussions; each specialist expressed his/her point of view on the discussed issue. Most of those present came to the collective opinion that the problem of creating a uniform building steel construction design regulatory system was a major issue. But what is it going to be like: translation or adaptation of Eurocodes, creating a Russian regulatory system, a mix of construction norms and regulations and Eurocode – is an open question. Just one thing is clear: the adopted norms should guarantee the safety of the produced steel constructions and buildings at large.

According to Leonid Gonitel – the MIRAX GROUP steel construction specialist, Eurocodes should be studied, design standards should be uniform for the whole country, but they should involve all the most recent standards in existence world wide.
 
Pavel Odesskiy, Doctor of Engineering Science, from the Kucherenko Central Institute for Scientific Research Project Development Company summed up the event in this way: “The conference has certainly been helpful and factual. The most urgent issues for the building sector was discussed in it. Problems of steel construction safety and ways to overcome them were discussed by Russian engineering experts working in this field. I am sure that I will express everyone’s opinion when I say: we are all interested in the productive work of the working commission created today”.
 
The participants of the conference made a decision to hold a similar event in October 2007.