OREANDA-NEWS. June 16, 2011. Mechel (NYSE: MTL), one of the leading Russian mining and steel companies, reports an accident at the roasting workshop’s electric furnace #2 in Southern Urals Nickel Plant, which is part of Mechel Group.

 On June 12, 2011, a flash at the workshop’s electric furnace #2 destroyed the furnace’s roof and fatally injured one worker. The Federal Ecological, Technological and Atomic Monitoring Agency (Rostekhnadzor)’s Urals department set up a commission to find the cause of the incident.

 Due to the furnace #2’s outage, the plant launched its reserve furnace #3. Repairs at the furnace #2 will take about 10 days to complete and are estimated to cost approximately 700,000 rubles (about 25,000 US dollars*).

 The accident will not impact the plant’s plans for production in June and for this year as a whole.

* According to the Russian Central Bank exchange rate of 27.7907 RUR/ USD as of June 11, 2011.