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Russia’s biggest miner MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC is weighing several new projects in copper, nickel and palladium in China as sanctions make cross-border payments and shipments increasingly difficult.
Nornickel executives held talks with potential Chinese partners this month and signed about ten memorandums of understanding, covering the whole group of metals the miner makes, two people familiar with situation said, asking not to be identified as the information is private.
While Nornickel has not been directly sanctioned by either the US or the European Union, its operations have been impacted by wider restrictions since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The London Metal exchange barred new deliveries of Russian metal this year.
Most European and all US banks stopped funding Russian metals’ deals, while some clients decided not to continue trading with the country. That made China the biggest export market for Nornickel since 2023, accounting for over a half of its sales.
Trading with China has become more complicated this year. In June, the US widened its secondary sanctions criteria by broadening the definition of Russia’s military-industrial base, leaving Chinese banks more reluctant to serve Russian transactions.
Nornickel already said in April that it plans to set up a copper plant and joint venture with a local player in China, marking an “out-of-the-box solution” to sanctions risks. The company plans to complete the plant by mid-2027 and ship copper concentrate to China through the Northern Sea Route.
The talks held last week were centered around this project, but also covered others, including building a nickel plant for battery producers, the people said. Discussions about the nickel plant were reported by Reuters on Thursday.
A spokesperson for Nornickel declined to comment.
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