Forenergo has opened another glass-insulator factory in Yuzhnouralsk, in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia. Interfax reported the launch on 16 December 2024, citing the company and comments from its director for government and public relations, Ella Irmukhametova. The new enterprise, JSC ZSI, has annual capacity exceeding five million units.
A new factory on an existing industrial site
The project uses the premises of the former Yuzhnouralsk Radio Ceramics Plant. That business entered bankruptcy in 2021; production using its assets subsequently restarted, and YUZRK Group acquired the assets through a bankruptcy auction in spring 2023. The new glass-insulator operation therefore combines an existing industrial location with a different manufacturing investment.
According to Irmukhametova, construction of ZSI involved about RUB900 million. A separate RUB300 million was allocated to renovation and production expansion at YuMEK, the holding’s other glass-insulator factory in Yuzhnouralsk. These are two distinct investment figures: the second amount should not be presented as the construction cost of the new plant.
What the announced figures describe
- ZSI: annual manufacturing capacity of more than five million glass insulators.
- New-plant investment: approximately RUB900 million.
- YuMEK renovation and expansion: a further RUB300 million.
- Combined annual output envisaged for the two factories: around 11 million units.
The combined figure was given by the company’s representative as the level expected following the launch. It is not a statement of completed sales or a verified production total for the whole of 2024. Likewise, nameplate capacity describes what a plant can produce; the report does not establish its utilisation rate, order backlog or export share.
The wider regional manufacturing network
Irmukhametova said Forenergo operated seven enterprises employing about 900 people in the Chelyabinsk region. Those numbers refer to the regional network, rather than staffing at ZSI alone. She also described plans to begin construction of two additional factories in 2025, one for varistors and one for casting. At the date of the report, these remained future projects.
The group’s activities extend beyond glass products to porcelain and polymer insulators, surge arresters, power-line fittings, engineering and testing. This wider range provides context for the investment, but the announcement does not quantify how the new site will change group revenue or the cost of individual products.
Interfax’s report supplies the launch date, investment estimates and attributed forecasts. The distinction between installed capacity and realised output is central to reading the announcement accurately.
