Business Watch
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.
The Board of directors of Norilsk Nikel has acceded to a request by UC Rusal which controls 25% of the Nikel company to summon an Extraordinary shareholder meeting on March 11, 2011.
Russian investor Mikhail Prokhorov, who owns 17 percent in the world’s biggest Aluminum producer – RusAl disagreed with Oleg Deripaska and urged him to consider Norilsk’s $12 billion offer.
An unidentified Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) official has said that Severstal has been asked to explain the planned price rise after the automaker AutoVAZ filed a complaint with the agency.
The Russian steelmaker has reported a net profit of $43 million under IFRS for Q3, 2010; lower than the net profit of $76 million reported over same period, last year.