Peter Hambro, Chairman of London-listed Russian gold  miner Petropavlovsk plc, was awarded the accolade of Mining Legend of the Year at the Minex dinner in Moscow on Thursday. The Daily Telegraph reported that after receiving the award Mr. Hambro said, "Now that I appear to be a legend in my own lifetime, I'm thinking of changimng my name to Jason.... and (in the context of these turbulent markets)continuing my search for the golden fleece."

With Oleg Deripaska's long running battle with rival oligarch Vladimir Potanin to control Arctic miner Norilsk Nickel finally oit of steam and legal machinations the stage is set for the end game with a third oligarch, Alisher Usmanov, entering the fray. Potanin's Interros holding company, through which he owns a nearly 30% stake in Norilsk, has been battling for three years for control of the company against Deripaska’s UC Rusal, which owns a 25% stake in the company.

Australian resources developer Meridian Minerals has announced that it  has reached an agreement with Russian gold miner, the London listed Petropavlovsk, which will result in joint development of new mines in the Russian far east. Meridian said on Friday it had signed a nonbinding heads of agreement (HoA) with Petropavlovsk to potentially acquire a 75% interest in the nonalluvial assets of ZAO ZRK Omchak for $40-million including  the Aliya gold project. 

Norilsk-Nickel says they plan to sign a deal with Outokumpu, the world leader in stainless steel production head-quartered in Espoo, Finland  to re-build the polluting smelter in Nikel during the first quarter of 2011.

We have received technical and commercial proposal from Outokumpu, the world leader in the development of technologies and equipment for metallurgy, says Sergey Selyadin, General Director of Kola GMK, the regional branch of Norilsk-Nikel in the Murmansk region, in a recent interview with Rossiskaya Gazeta.A re-print of the interview is posted at the portal of Kola GMK.

In September last year, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gave a clear message: - Norilsk Nickel must modernize its polluting way or production, or risk considerably higher fines, BarentsObserver reported Putin saying.

General Director Salyadin says the plan is to immediately begin the design work and to manufacture the equipment when the deal with Outokumpu is signed.

Then, the project of modernization itself will be implemented in 2012-2013.

The pollution from the smelter in Nikel has been troubling the Norwegian – Russian relations in the north for more than two decades.

At the last Barents Council meeting in Murmansk in October 2009, the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told Russia’s Sergey Lavrov “This is not good enough,” in a comment after Lavrov said it is less pollution from Nikel today than before.

Sergey Salyadin also told Rossiskaya Gazeta about the on-going reconstruction of the briquetting plant in Zapolyarny.

- We expect to launch the first line of the plant in the first half of 2011 and to launch the second line by in the second half of the year. This new lines will solve the pollution problems in Zapolyarny, according to Salyadin.

Kola MMC’s plants near the Norwegian border emitted 97,7 thousand tons of sulphur dioxide in 2008. That is five times more than the entire Norwegian emissions of sulphur dioxide.