Nornickel says nickel output flat year-on-year in first quarter

Russia’s Nornickel, the world’s largest palladium producer and a major producer of refined nickel, said on Monday that its nickel output in the first quarter was flat year-on-year at 42,000 metric tons.

Palladium output was down 18% at 608,000 ounces in the first quarter, the company said, while production of copper was down 10% and production of platinum by 24%.

“The decrease in production was driven by the high base effect of the first quarter of last year and the redistribution of production volumes of commercial products between quarters,” said chief operating officer Evgeny Fedorov.

Fedorov said that the company had completed the construction of a connection of the exploration workings at the Glubokaya mine at the Skalisty nickel deposit near Norilsk through which extracted ore will be transported to the surface.

“Bringing the Skalisty deposit to its design capacity is one of the company’s key mining projects aimed at increasing production volumes in the medium term,” he said.

Nornickel says that, with a depth of over two kilometres (1.24 miles), Glubokaya is the deepest mine in Eurasia.

The company maintained its output forecast for the current year at between 193,000 and 203,000 metric tons of nickel and between 2.415 million and 2.465 million ounces of palladium.

Nornickel’s main shareholder and CEO Vladimir Potanin has previously said that production declines are temporary, citing depleted ore reserves, the switch to non-Western equipment suppliers and the loss of some markets. He expects output to stabilize by 2028.

(By Anastasia Lyrchikova and Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Vladimir Soldatkin, Andrew Osborn and Joe Bavier)