Russian Platinum wants to buy plant from Norilsk Nickel

Russian Platinum, which develop two platinoid deposits in Taimyr, has offered to buy a plant from Norilsk Nickel, which it prepares for conservation, said representative of Russian Platinum Andrei Rumyantsev.

"We believe that the closure of nickel plant will put Norilsk Nickel and the city in front of a number of problems - social, technological, infrastructural, which we could solve. We could undertake some risk of the plant closure, rebuild industrial site, recreate jobs, thereby forming the tax deductions,"- he said.

Russian Platinum estimates the cost of Norilsk Nickel for the plant conservation at 1.5 billion rubles. How much, according to Russian Platinum, the enterprise costs, Andrei Rumyantsev didn’t specify. Response to the initiative hasn’t yet been received, he said. Norilsk Nickel doesn’t comment on the proposal.

An alternative to buying the nickel plant can be as acquisition of a platform and energy infrastructure of the company, said Andrei Rumyantsev.

Norilsk Nickel plans to close down the obsolete nickel plant, commissioned in 1942, in 2016. The volume of metal refining and smelting will be moved from the nickel plant to a more modern Nadezhda metallurgical plant, for which overhaul to increase the capacity of smelter furnaces is carried out at the plant.