Russian miner Norilsk Nickel will create a joint venture to construct a new copper producing plant, its CEO has said
Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel will move some copper smelting production to China in the wake of Western sanctions pressure, the company’s chief executive Vladimir Potanin said in an interview with Interfax on Monday.
The US and UK have targeted Russian-origin aluminum, copper, and nickel in an attempt to reduce Moscow’s export revenues.
“This [sanctions] pressure forced us to think about how to get our goods to the distribution market in the right way,” Potanin told the news outlet, adding that “one of these non-standard solutions is to transfer part of production to markets of direct consumption.”
The businessman highlighted that Norilsk Nickel would create a joint venture in China to build a new plant, which is expected to be constructed by mid-2027, and would supply it with about 2 million metric tons of copper concentrate a year.
According to Potanin, the final product will be sold as Chinese, and “Chinese goods are much more difficult to sanction in China than Russian goods coming to China.”
The initiative would reportedly also protect the company’s exports from growing sanctions pressure on financial transactions with Russia. “Settlements are one of the biggest obstacles even in friendly jurisdictions, they don’t let exporters and importers work normally,” Potanin argued.
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