[ferro-alloys.com]The Murmansk Region will support Norilsk Nickel’s RUB 25.7 bn investment project to upgrade Kola MMC. This is stipulated by a special investment contract made by the Company and the regional government today.

The document was signed on the margins of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum by Elena Bezdenezhnykh, Nornickel’s Vice President, and Marina Kovtun, Governor of the Murmansk Region.

The contract defines the forms and terms of granting state support for investment activities to be implemented as part of the project to upgrade Kola MMC. The project is expected to run for five years from 2018 to 2023, affecting all of Norilsk Nickel’s production sites in the Murmansk Region, including Polar Division, Nickel and Monchegorsk sites. It will help almost double the Kola MMC’s capacities, while also securing significant cuts in emissions of harmful pollutants (primarily at Nickel site) and greater economic efficiency due to a decrease in operating costs (by 17%) and a reduction in metal losses.

The investment project’s key milestones are the construction of a copper-nickel ore concentrate shipment facility in Zapolyarny and the upgrade of nickel refining operations (tank-house 2 to be advanced by introducing the technology of nickel electrowinning from chlorine dissolved tube furnace nickel powder).

The new copper-nickel ore concentrate shipment facility will enable the Company to split its copper-nickel concentrate into low-grade and high-grade. Following the separation by flotation, the concentrate with a high nickel content will undergo briquetting and then be delivered to the smelting facilities in the town of Nickel to produce converter matte. The Company plans to sell the rest of the concentrate to third-party consumers. The project is set to significantly reduce sulphur dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

• [Editor:王可]