Column: LME brand approval cements Indonesian nickel ascendancy

The world’s two biggest metals traders plan to withdraw the metal to profit from a new multi-tiered system created by the sanctions.

Russian RCC and Chinese firms have avoided taxes and skirted the impact of sanctions by trading in new copper wire rod disguised as scrap.

The opportunity lies in massive piles of Russian metal already sitting in the LME global warehouse network.

Nornickel intends to remain a "reliable supplier of products" and will continue to fulfil all its contractual obligations, said the company.

Russia was in 2022 ranked as the world's second biggest gold miner, after China.

After seizing power in a coup in 2021 and forming an alliance with Russian troops, the Mali junta has been focusing on the mining industry.

It is a second lawsuit Sberbank has filed in Russia against Glencore over unpaid fuel supplies.

Aluminum jumped as much as 9.4% as the market opened, the most since the current form of the contract was launched in 1987.

The sanctions now leave the Shanghai Futures Exchange as the only major commodities bourse in the world to accept Russian shipments.