Norilsk Nickel board to discuss development strategy to 2025
MOSCOW. Oct 26 (Interfax) - The board of directors of MMC Norilsk Nickel will review the company's industrial and technical development strategy until 2025 at a meeting on October 27, a source close to the company told Interfax.
Norilsk Nickel confirmed this information but did not specify the parameters of the strategy.
The key provisions of the development strategy were originally presented at a board of directors meeting on December 28, 2010. In March 2011, Norilsk's management discussed the strategy, after which it was approved by the board's strategy committee.
The company's minimum volume of investment in development until 2025 is $32-$34 billion, Norilsk's General Director Vladimir Strzhalkovsky said in March. The company's top managers have said that the $34 billion figure only accounts for investments in Norilsk's Russian assets - the Polar and Kola divisions. Besides Russia, Norilsk also has upstream assets in Australia and Africa and downstream assets in Finland.
Under the strategy, funds will be allocated as such: 40% to upstream capacity development, 25% to enrichment capacity development, 15% to production modernization, and 20% to metallurgical development, Strzhalkovsky said.
The most intensive investments are planned for the first seven-eight years, while in subsequent years they will slightly decrease, Norilsk's First Deputy CEO Yury Filippov said at the end of last year.
It is expected that as a result of the strategy's implementation, Norilsk's Polar Division, which currently produces 16.5 million tonnes of ore, will produce 29 million tonnes by 2023. The Kola Division, which currently produces 8 million tonnes of ore, could potentially increase production to 9.5 million tonnes.
