Hedge funds’ bullish bets on gold jump to four-year high
Hedge funds and other large speculators boosted their net-long position in gold.
Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin has bought his partner Grigory Berezkin’s stake in the Bystrinsky mine in Russia’s Far East, representatives for the two businessmen said on Tuesday.
Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel, known as Nornickel and which is co-owned by Potanin and holds a 50% stake in the remote copper and gold mine, has been looking for a partner in the ambitious project for several years.
A further 36.7% stake in the mine, which was completed in 2017 and has an operational capacity of 10 million tonnes of ore, has been held since 2017 by CIS Natural Resources, a fund shared by Berezkin and Potanin.
Berezkin’s stake in this fund has been bought by one of the firms in Potanin’s investment vehicle Interros.
The sale was first reported by the Kommersant daily and confirmed by representatives for Interros, Berezkin’s ESN Group and Nornickel on Tuesday.
Nornickel, the world’s second-largest nickel and top palladium producer, had been looking to attract investment partners for the $1.3 billion project, and a 13.33% stake was bought by the Chinese-owned Highland Fund in 2015.
The mine is located some 400 km (250 miles) by rail from the Chinese border in the Siberian region of Chita. Nornickel, has previously said it plans to focus exports from Bystrinsky to China, the world’s top iron ore consumer.
Potanin said last November that Nornickel could decide on a possible initial public offering (IPO) of the firm running the Bystrinsky mine in the third quarter of 2020.
The mine is expected to reach full operating capacity in mid-2020, Nornickel has said.
(By Anastasia Lyrchikova, Gleb Stolyarov, Polina Ivanova and Alexandra Hudson)
Comments
Simon Bhaba
Yes in future iron & copper ore gets lot of demand so new mining must come to prevent the scarcity