Moscow, July 16, 2020 — Nornickel, the world’s largest producer of palladium and high-grade nickel and a major producer of platinum and copper, announces that Nornickel and Russian Platinum will continue to cooperate in the development of deposits in the Norilsk Industrial District. The companies agreed on an operational partnership to develop the promising Chernogorskoye field.

As reported in March 2020, the managers of Nornickel and Russian Platinum have held a series of negotiations on reshaping their partnership and considered various opportunities to support the projects of Russian Platinum and its potential partners. These negotiations resulted in the signing by Russian Platinum and Nornickel of an operational partnership agreement today, on July 16, 2020.

According to the agreement, Nornickel will provide to Russian Platinum, on market terms, the access to its infrastructure in the Norilsk Industrial District through long-term service contracts on the supply of electricity and other resources, as well as the right to use its logistics infrastructure and facilities. In addition, the parties have agreed that Nornickel will purchase the products produced from the Chernogorskoye field, for which a separate long-term off take agreement will be signed. The relevant binding contracts are planned to be concluded before the end of the Q1 2021 subject to obtaining of all the necessary corporate approvals.

“Nornickel welcomes a long-term strategic partnership with Russian Platinum. The cooperation of these two companies in this new format will be an impetus for the development of the Norilsk industrial region; it will also provide the platinum market with the necessary volume of scarce metals,” said Sergey Dubovitsky, Nornickel’s Senior VP of Strategy, Logistics, Resource Support.

“Russian Platinum aims to create a new large production complex in the Norilsk Industrial District, the first stage of which will entail the construction of the Chernogorskoye mining and processing complex. A strategic partnership with Nornickel will allow us to launch the project on a tight schedule and step up our work,” said Russian Platinum CEO Evgeny Vorobeichik.