UPDATE 1-Russia's Severstal ups stake in Canada's Crew Gold

* Severstal buys 10 pct of Crew shares at 18 pct premium

* Severstal now has 36 pct stake in Crew Gold



July 7 (Reuters) - Russian steelmaker Severstal on Wednesday said it has increased its stake in Canada's Crew Gold to about 36.22 percent.

Severstal bought 206 million shares, or about 10 percent of Crew Gold's outstanding shares, at C$0.2887 each, which represents a premium of almost 18 percent to the company's closing of $C0.245 on Tuesday.

Severstal, which has been looking to buy a majority stake in the Oslo- and Toronto-listed Crew Gold, has been expressing concerns over the purchase of Crew Gold's shares by Canadian merchant bank Endeavour Financial Corp.

Endeavour, through its unit, has been acquiring shares of Crew Gold from the market, and currently owns about 43 percent of Crew's shares and has three board positions, according to Reuters data.

(Reporting by Savio D'Souza in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel) Keywords: SEVERSTAL/CREWGOLD ([e-mail]; within U.S. [phone]; outside U.S. [phone]; Reuters Messaging [e-mail]) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.