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Trade News

Russian mining industry showing some signs of recovery

Last December, the Russian mining industry felt beleaguered by the global recession. That month, Norilsk Nickel CEO Vladimir Strzhalkovsky issued an appeal to the Kremlin. “The industry is in a very difficult situation now. The revenues of Norilsk Nickel alone will drop 50% [in 2009]. Besides, we are losing in terms of competition, as our rivals don’t pay export duty on nickel and copper. In Russia, it stands at 15%, so we ask you to abolish it.”

Nickel prices had fallen to around a third of their peak in February 2008, and Russia’s third-largest nickel producer, Ufaleynickel, had stopped production in October as a result of the low prices the metal was fetching. In response, in January, the Russian government cut its export duties on nickel and copper, a move that was expected to save the affected companies up to $300-million this year.

It has been calculated that the Russian mining sector contracted by 5% in real terms in 2008.

The predicament of a number of the country’s biggest mining and related metals companies was such that, in January, there was a widely reported plan to merge them, and have the Kremlin take a 25% share in the resulting group in return for writing off their collective debts, which came to more than $27-billion, most of which was owed to State-owned banks. The companies proposed for this megamerger were Norilsk Nickel, potash- miner Uralkali, iron-ore-miner and steel producer Metalloinvest, and steel groups Evraz and Mechel. Had the megamerger gone through, it would have created a group with a market capitalisation of between $70- billion and $100-billion, sales of $60-billion, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $23-billion.

But it did not happen. Reportedly, the idea was vetoed by the Russian government, apparently because it did not wish to take on the accumulated debts of the companies concerned.

So, what is the state of the Russian mining sector today? That is connected to the state of the Russian, and the wider world, economies.