Two department directors resign from Norilsk Nickel
MOSCOW. Aug 21 (Interfax) - Two department directors have resigned from MMC Norilsk Nickel : Alexander Perov and Tatiana Kulkina, who had been at the company for several months, sources close to Norilsk Nickel told Interfax.
A Norilsk Nickel spokesman confirmed this information.
The vacancies have yet to be filled, and there is no hurry to fill them, one of the sources said. This is because Norilsk Nickel's staff list might be adjusted to the goals and tasks of the company's new strategy, which is expected to come out in the fourth quarter.
Kulkina, who had headed up the government relations department since the end of April, received a more attractive job offer, a source with knowledge of the situation said.
Perov, the former director of Norilsk Nickel's department for strategic projects, had previously worked for the company at the beginning of the 2000s. He was a member of the team of Vladimir Potanin's ally at Interros - former First Deputy General Director of Norilsk Nickel Vladimir Yakovlev, who came to the company this past January.
Yakovlev was in charge of OJSC Power Machines and Remputmash prior to his arrival at Norilsk Nickel, which he left at the end of last month. According to a source with ties to Norilsk Nickel, he resigned after accomplishing his tasks of ensuring that the company functioned smoothly and searching for reserves of efficiency.
"The priority tasks were completed, and Norilsk Nickel has switched to completing other tasks, all the more so since the team has been supplemented with specialists who were difficult to find in such a short time," a source commented on Yakovlev's resignation.
One such specialist is Sergei Dyachenko from Kazakhmys, who previously held management positions at Rio Tinto and De Beers. He became deputy head of production at Norilsk Nickel not long before Yakovlev's resignation.
Together with Yakovlev and Perov, Maxim Naumchenko also came to Norilsk Nickel from Remputmash in January. Naumchenko is currently still on at Norilsk Nickel.
It was precisely the position of Yakovlev and Naumchenko that served as the basis for the adoption of such decisions as the transition to the principle of "IRR minimum 20%" for the selection of priority projects for the 2013 investment program, which might be reduced by 20% against the approved level of 75.4 billion rubles; the potential five-year postponement of the construction of a mining and processing complex at the Bugdainskoye molybdenum deposit in the Transbaikal territory, and the decision not to shut down Tati Nickel in Botswana.
Besides the government relations and strategic projects departments, the directorship of the department for overseas production assets is also being vacated. Roman Panov, who took the reigns at state-owned geological holding Rusgeology in June, resigned from this post.
