RUSAL suggests Norilsk Nickel change top management

MOSCOW, Jul 14 (PRIME) -- Russian aluminum giant UC RUSAL has suggested that metals giant Norilsk Nickel change its top management, RUSAL said in a statement on Tuesday.

“We have presented the board of directors of Norilsk Nickel with a proposal to accept a resolution demanding that Vladimir Potanin, as the managing partner, changes the management team, relocates the company headquarters to Norilsk and overhauls corporate policies towards environmental and safety issues,” the company said.

RUSAL is concerned with a series of ecological disasters that happened over the past month because of Norilsk Nickel’s negligence.

“What is currently happening at Norilsk Nickel invites to seriously question the competence of the company’s management as well as their suitability to be in charge of running the business. Another question is aimed at the board of directors and their seeming inability to have any influence on the ongoing situation. One has to wonder whether they realize that through their collective inertia, this is likely to lead to severe and damaging criticism from the environmental and investment communities,” the company said.

A fuel tank at Norilsk-Taimyr Energy Company, part of Norilsk Nickel group, lost pressure on May 29 and leaked out 21,000 tonnes of fuel and lubricants into the river Ambarnaya, causing a fire. The Federal Service for Natural Resources Oversight assessed the damage inflicted on the environment by the spill at 147.7 billion rubles earlier in July, but Norilsk Nickel disputed the amount of damage.

Also in June, the Investigative Committee launched an investigation into illegal dumps of technical water by the Talnakh concentrator plant of Norilsk Nickel. The metals giant conducted its own investigation, discovered two events of unsanctioned dumps of technical water by the plant, and it fired the management of the plant on Monday.

(70.7479 rubles – U.S. $1)

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