MOSCOW: MMC Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel), the world’s largest producer of palladium and high-grade nickel and a major producer of platinum and copper, announced that on June 1 the company began to gradually restart ore mining at the Taimyrsky underground mine and plans to advance mine’s operations to full capacity in the near future.

Currently, the mine has reached a daily mined volume of 5 kt, which is about 40% of the design capacity.

“Water from the horizons of the Taimyrsky mine has been pumped out. Today, our main goal is to reinforce the underground workings to ensure the safety of our employees. We will be gradually scaling up mining as we take these measures. The mine is expected to reach its design capacity of 12,1 kt per day by the end of June 2021,” said Nikolay Utkin, Senior Vice President of Norilsk Nickel and Head of the Norilsk Division.

As previously announced, the final stage of recovery operations at the Taimyrsky mine (4.3 mtpa of ore) is expected to be fully completed by the end of June.

MMC Norilsk Nickel is a diversified mining and metallurgical company, the world’s largest producer of palladium and high-grade nickel and a major producer of platinum and copper. The company also produces cobalt, rhodium, silver, gold, iridium, ruthenium, selenium, tellurium, sulphur and other products.

The production units of Norilsk Nickel Group are located at the Norilsk Industrial District, on the Kola Peninsula and Zabaykalsky Krai in Russia as well as in Finland and South Africa.

MMC Norilsk Nickel shares are listed on the Moscow and on the Saint-Petersburg Stock Exchanges, ADRs are traded over the counter in the US and on the London, Berlin and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges.