In an interview with the Interfax news agency, the founder of Interros and the president of Norilsk Nickel revealed plans to expand the strategic partnership with China. Vladimir Potanin also assessed the effectiveness of environmental business programs and spoke about new profitable business competencies.
Photo: Norilsk Nickel press service
Potanin noted that despite the difficulties in launching the first stage of the program due to failure from obligations on the part of Western partners, the “Sulfur Program” can be called successful.
“The project is being successfully implemented, we have achieved the technical characteristics that we set, which is more than 99% of sulfur recovery. That is, the technology physically works on a huge industrial scale. And the performance of the technology was the main risk, since this project is innovative,” — he said, emphasizing that all environmental obligations of Norilsk Nickel are before the state will be fulfilled. As a result, emissions in Norilsk will be reduced by 45%, and at the end of the third quarter of the year the second and third lines of the program will be launched.
According to the president of Norilsk Nickel, the experience of recent years, when Russia was faced with a pandemic and aggressive sanctions of foreign partners, led to a rethinking of business strategy.
Capturing sulfur and producing sulfuric acid creates millions of tons of gypsum, which are sent to special storage facilities underground. Instead of spending large amounts of money on waste disposal, Vladimir Potanin plans to solve this issue in a more profitable way.
Vladimir Potanin voiced a method which will bring the goods produced by the business closer to the place of consumption. This will allow the final product to be sold as Chinese, which will be a good help for the international market.
“Now these sanctions are formalized, but even before that, like other producers of Russian raw materials and other goods, we were faced with customer refusals and the need to provide discounts. This pressure forced us to think about how best to deliver our goods to markets. And one of these non-standard solutions is the transfer of part of production to direct consumption markets. This is how the idea of creating smelting capacity for copper concentrate in China was born,” – Potanin said.
In addition, the transfer of production to China will make it possible to sell sulfuric acid, which is in demand on the Asian market. And this, in addition to profit, will also rid the Russian tundra of unnecessary gypsum storage facilities.
“A win-win situation arises. «Norilsk Nickel» will focus on those competencies that are most profitable and effective for us – mining and enrichment, and will obtain a battery production chain. We transfer our environmental problems, payment problems, market access problems, problems of customizing our goods for the consumer market to where they are solved most effectively, in this case — To China. And China accounts for 50% of nickel and copper consumption, and now, taking into account the refusal of Europe and America from our goods, China will account for more than half of our sales,” – added the speaker.
Also, the transfer of smelting capacities will open up the opportunity for Russia to master the production of batteries: “Having these technologies, we, together with Rosatom,” We will produce both cathode materials and the batteries themselves, using products from the Kolmozersky lithium deposit. Battery production — this is a key story for both transport and various industrial facilities.”
Vladimir Potanin is convinced that now is the right time in Russia to create new value chains that will strengthen the technological and financial sovereignty of the state. “Of course, no one has canceled the international division of labor. But within the framework of this division of labor, you need to succeed in what you can do better, and attract a strong partner where you are not competitive, while maintaining key competencies,” — he concluded.
As the Interfax interlocutor noted, the transfer of part of the production of the Copper Plant will help accelerate the development of Talnakh and the Norilsk industrial region.
“Therefore, we are now speeding up the construction of the third stage of the Talnakh enrichment plant, which will be needed in the chain of increasing production. Ideally, after implementing the project to create smelting capacities in China, we will have the most modern smelting production at the Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant. It can be expanded: we still have a site for the third stage, which we will need by 2030, when the question of increasing production will arise. Increase in production volumes — this is an increase in the tax base both for the Krasnoyarsk Territory and for the country as a whole,” – Potanin said.
“We are not talking about the closure of one specific enterprise, but about a change in approaches to business, to partnership, to the international division of labor, to the creation of value chains on a completely different basis. And, as a result, this will require completely different personnel. There will be additional demand for IT specialists and engineers. We will both prepare them ourselves at the Polar State University and use the capabilities of the Siberian Federal University in Krasnoyarsk,” – continued Vladimir Potanin.
In his opinion, this will contribute to the company becoming an anchor resident of the technology park in Krasnoyarsk, as well as avoiding costs and losses due to supply refusals, forced discounts on metal and the creation of inventories. The new project was reported to the President and the Chairman of the Government, at the moment there is interaction with the relevant ministries.
«According to our calculations, which we provided to the government, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry, after the implementation of this project «Norilsk Nickel» ; will be able to increase revenue by 20% compared to the situation before the beginning of 2022. For budget purposes, in fact, within four years we will reach indicators that are almost 1.5 times better than what we have now, and 20% better than 2-4 years ago.”
«We are creating a joint venture with international partners. This means that we will receive a share in the income of international projects and return a significant part of them in the form of dividends to Russia for investment within the country,” — summarized the president of the company.