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Norilsk Nickel

Nornickel closes Monchegorsk plant as it ramps up environmentally-friendly transition – by Marek Grzegorczyk (Emerging Europe – March 24, 2021)

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Russian metal producer Norilsk Nickel has announced that it will close its metallurgical plant in the city of Monchegorsk as part of the company’s programme to move towards greener production.

Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel) is set to close a metallurgical plant in the city of Monchegorsk, in the border region of Russia, Norway and Finland, the main source of sulphur dioxide emissions in the area.

The closure of the workshop is associated with the firm’s ongoing process of transitioning to the environmentally-friendly production of high-quality metallurgical products.

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Russian mining giant Nornickel shuts metallurgical plant, aims to cut emissions at Kola Peninsula by 85% in 2021 – by Vladimir Basov (Kitco News – March 22, 2021)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest producer of palladium and high grade nickel and a major producer of platinum and copper, announced today that it has shut down its metallurgical plant at Kola MMC in Monchegorsk, Russia.

The company said that the plant was shut down on March 20th 2021. It was previously a major source of sulphur dioxide emissions at Kola MMC’s Monchegorsk site.

In early March, the shop stopped pyrometallurgical operations: the furnaces and converters were shut down and sulphur dioxide emissions ceased. Nornickel took another step towards higher efficiency and greener operations.

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Nornickel downgrades output forecast by 15-20% after mine restarts delayed – by Polina Devitt and Anastasia Lyrchikova (Financial Post/Reuters – March 16, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

MOSCOW — Nornickel expects its 2021 nickel, copper, platinum and palladium output to fall 15-20% short of original guidance due to waterlogging at two Siberian mines, the Russian company said on Tuesday.

The mines are unlikely to restart fully for another 3-4 months, the company said.

The announcement pushed nickel, platinum and palladium prices higher. Nickel quickly gave back some of its gains, but platinum was up around 1% and palladium shot up 5% to its highest in more than a year. Nornickel shares were down 5.5% in Moscow.

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Nornickel fined $2 billion for massive Arctic fuel spill – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – February 5, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

Norilsk Nickel (MCX: GMKN), the world’s largest producer of palladium and nickel, will have to pay a record fine of 146 billion rubles ($1.94 billion) in compensation for a huge fuel spill in the Arctic last May, a Russian court ruled on Friday.

The amount, while in line with a demand by the nation’s environmental watchdog Rosprirodnadzor, more than doubles what Russia is seeking to get in mineral extraction tax from mining companies this year.

“We won!!!” Rosprirodnadzor head Svetlana Rodionova, who was in the courtroom on Friday, said in an Instagram post. “Ecology is everyone’s business!!!”

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Another smoggy Sunday in the town with factories owned by Russia’s richest man – by Thomas Nilsen (The Barents Observer – October 4, 2020)

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

People driving the Kola highway have seen it before. Like in late July when kilometers and kilometers of the nature west of the nickel and copper smelters were covered by smog containing sulfur dioxide and heavy metals.

A week later, the leaves on the few still-alive trees in the lunar landscape started to brown. On Sunday, October 4th, the sulfur gasses were again blowing over the Arctic landscape, a video posted by Navalny’s office in Murmansk shows.

After Nornickel closed its nickel refining factory in Norilsk a few years ago, all refining now takes place in Monchegorsk, a two hours’ drive south of Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula.

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Tesla to meet with Indigenous activists as it plots future supply chain – by Jacob Holzman (SP Global – September 30, 2020)

https://www.spglobal.com/

Tesla Inc. will meet with a network of Russian Indigenous activists campaigning for the electric vehicle company to boycott nickel supplied by PJSC Norilsk Nickel Co., the world’s largest producer of high-grade nickel, according to one of the activists involved with the campaign.

Pavel Sulyandziga, president of Indigenous rights group Batani Foundation, told S&P Global Market Intelligence through an interpreter that advocates with the boycott campaign are scheduled to speak with Tesla representatives involved with corporate social responsibility on Oct. 7.

Sulyandziga said the group plans to reiterate a request made in an open letter released in early August that Tesla not engage with Norilsk Nickel, also known as NorNickel, which is facing billions in damages over major oil spills in the Arctic.

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Rising temperatures leave Russia’s Arctic ambitions on thin ice – by Toby Woodall (S&P Global Market Intelligence – September 7, 2020)

https://www.spglobal.com/

The Arctic provides almost 25% of Russia’s GDP, according to a
July U.S. Air Force report on Arctic Strategy, which describes
the area as “a region of immense geostrategic significance and a key location for global power projection.”

Rising temperatures and several environmental catastrophes over summer have revealed the underlying risks to Moscow’s ambitious plans to develop everything from military bases to mines and associated infrastructure in Russia’s far-flung eastern and northern regions, including the increasingly strategically important Arctic.

Record temperatures and wildfires in Siberia this summer — following Russia’s mildest winter yet — were accompanied by a series of highly polluting incidents in the High North, including one of the worst oil spills ever seen in the rapidly warming region.

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Russian indigenous peoples call on Elon Musk not to buy battery metals from Nornickel – by Thomas Nilsen (The Baren Observer – August 7, 2020)

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

The company that recently made international headlines for causing environmental disasters on the Taimyr Peninsula by spilling 20,000 tons of diesel fuel into a river in the fragile Arctic ecosystems is under increased pressure.

In a letter to Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, the Aborigen Forum urge him not to buy nickel, copper and other products from Nornickel until the company conducts a full and independent assessment of the environmental damage caused by its production.

This week, The Barents Observer could tell the story about dying tree leaves caused by massive air-pollution over a several square kilometers large area near Nornickel’s smelters in Monchegorsk on the Kola Peninsula.

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Pandemic Helps Russia Tighten Its Grip on a Key Strategic Metal – by Yuliya Fedorinova and Felix Njini (Bloomberg News – July 2, 2020)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — As the coronavirus pandemic pummeled demand from key customers in the auto industry, Russia’s biggest mining company quietly tightened its grip on the palladium market.

MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC was already the No. 1 miner of the metal used in autocatalysts, but the crisis has allowed it to gain market share. That’s because Nornickel’s Russian operations have barely missed a beat, while its main rivals in South Africa are struggling to ramp up production after shuttering mines during a national virus lockdown.

“Norilsk Nickel has always been considered as the last company to die,” said Artem Bagdasaryan, an analyst at BCS Global Markets. “The pandemic only highlights it.”

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Russian mining giant behind major Arctic fuel spill admits waste ‘violations’ (South China Post – June 29, 2020)

https://www.scmp.com/

Agence France-Presse – A Russian mining giant behind an enormous Arctic fuel spill last month said Sunday it had suspended workers at a metals plant who were responsible for pumping waste water into nearby tundra.

Norilsk Nickel cited a “flagrant violation of operating rules” in a statement announcing it had suspended employees responsible for dumping waste water from a dangerously full reservoir into wildlife.

The incident occurred at the Talnakh enrichment plant near the Arctic city of Norilsk, the company said, one month after the unprecedented fuel leak sparked a state of emergency declared by President Vladimir Putin.

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The Oil Spill From Russian Nickel Mine Is Moving Toward The Arctic Ocean (NPR.org – June 16, 2020)

https://www.npr.org/

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

There is an environmental disaster developing in the Arctic. More than 150,000 barrels of diesel oil from a mining complex spewed into a river in northern Russia late last month. It is the biggest oil spill in the Arctic to date. And now the oil slick is moving towards the Arctic Ocean. NPR international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam reports.

JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: Most Arctic experts agree that the three great concerns for the frozen north are climate change, stranded ships and oil spills.

VICTORIA HERRMANN: To get a response to an oil spill in the Arctic Ocean means that you have to move infrastructure, expertise, ships from more southern ports up to the Arctic.

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Huge Arctic Fuel Spill May Have Been Triggered by Climate Change – by Yuliya Fedorinova (Bloomberg News – June 4, 2020)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

Russia declared a federal state of emergency in part of Siberia after a massive fuel spill that MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC said could have been caused by melting permafrost.

The May 29 incident, in which 20,000 tons of diesel leaked from a reservoir owned by Nornickel, may revive concerns about the effects of climate change on infrastructure in the Arctic. Scientists have warned for years that thawing of once permanently frozen ground covering more than half of Russia is threatening the stability of buildings and pipelines.

Greenpeace said the accident was the largest ever in the Arctic region, and likened it to the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska in 1989. The cause of the spill hasn’t been determined, but Nornickel First Vice President Sergey Dyachenko said on Thursday it could be the result of damage from melting permafrost. The rate of warming in the Arctic is twice as fast as the rest of the world.

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UPDATE 1-Russia’s Nornickel warns of coronavirus risks, reports leap in profit (Reuters U.S. – February 26, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

MOSCOW, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel) said on Wednesday it expected uncertain times ahead in two of its key markets — nickel and copper — as the coronavirus outbreak continues to disrupt both demand and supply.

The company, which reported 2019 net profit up 95% compared to the previous year, said the outbreak, which originated in China, made the future health of these markets hard to predict.

“The Chinese government restrictions on mobility, extended work holidays and mandatory closures have imposed a significant disruption to the supply chain and already had a significant impact on end consumption,” Nornickel said, referring to nickel markets.

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World’s biggest nickel miner has a plan for its crisis-ridden border town: here could come a hub for Arctic tourism – by Atle Staalesen (The Barents Observer – January 23, 2020)

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

There is a sense of crisis in the small town of Nikel located on the border to Norway and Finland. Here, most men and women have for the past three generations had their lives closely connected with the local nickel smelter.

Now, the cornerstone industry is closing and several hundred people will be dismissed in the course of the year. Locals fear that Nikel will be abandoned and turned into a ghost town.

However, local authorities and the nickel company assure that there will be new industries created that locals can be re-trained and re-employed in new jobs.

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Cobalt market to avoid shortage despite Congo mine closure: Nornickel – by Anastasia Lyrchikova and Polina Devitt (Reuters U.S. – October 29, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Cobalt supply will remain robust despite a price slide that has already led to the closure of a major mine, Russia’s Norilsk Nickel said, as most is produced as a byproduct of more buoyant metals like nickel and copper.

Prices of the battery metal surged in 2017 and 2018 on expectations for an electric vehicle revolution, but have fallen this year due to excessive supply and the impact of the U.S.-China trade war.

They are now down 60% from their spring 2018 peak. In August global mining and trade giant Glencore said it would shutter its Mutanda mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo from year-end for two years due to low cobalt prices.

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