UPDATE 1-Russia's Severstal increases stake in Crew Gold

* Severstal buys Crew Gold shares at 30 pct premium

* Severstal now has 40.38 pct stake in Crew Gold

* Crew Gold shares up 8 pct



July 20 (Reuters) - Russian steelmaker Severstal said it bought C$30 million worth of Crew Gold shares, increasing its stake in the Canadian miner to about 40.38 percent.

On Monday, Severstal bought 88.9 million shares, or about 4.16 percent of Crew Gold's outstanding shares, for C$0.3369 each, a premium of 30 percent to Crew Gold's Friday close of C$0.260.

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.

Severstal said it presently exercises influence over Crew Gold through representation on the board of directors.

Shares of Crew Gold were trading up about 8 percent at 27 Canadian cents Tuesday morning on the Toronto Stock Exchange. At 1445 GMT, Severstal shares were trading off about 2 percent on Moscow's MICEX.

(Reporting by Arnika Thakur in Bangalore; Editing by Anne Pallivathuckal) Keywords: 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.