Norilsk-Nickel to pay 1.3 billion USD in dividends
The board of Norilsk-Nickel wants to pay half of last year’s net profit in dividends.
The mining and metallurgy giant Norilsk-Nickel posted announced a USD 2.65 billion net profit for 2009 and its board recommended Thursday to pay 1.325 billion USD in dividends to the company’s share holders, according to company’s web-site.
RusAl, which owns 25 percent of Norilsk-Nickel, had called on the company to pay out 3 billion USD, exceeding its profit for 2009, CEO Vladimir Strzhalkovsky told reporters according to The Moscow Times. The proposal was turned down by the board.
Read also: Norilsk Nickel boosted profits
A subsidiary of Norilsk-Nickel is Kolskaya GMK that operate nickel and copper smelters in cities of Nikel and Monchegorsk and mines in Zapolyarny on the Kola Peninsula, in addition to its huge mines- and smelter complex in Norilsk in northern Siberia.
One of Russia’s richest men, Vladimir Potanin, is through his Interros conglomerate the main shareholder in Norilsk-Nickel. Potanin boosted his personal fortune from 2.1 billion USD in 2009 to 10.3 billion USD this year. That makes him Russia’s seventh richest man.
The company’s smelter in the city of Nikel near the Norwegian border is one of the largest polluters in the Barents Region. With an estimated emission of about 100,000 tons of sulfur dioxides (SO2) annually, the pollution from the factory affects the nature in Russia, Norway, Finland and Sweden.
Read also: SO2 emission from Nikel will increase
Despite the company’s large profit, nothing is invested into cleaner production at the smelter in Nikel. Last month Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg agreed that the cross-border pollution from the nickel-production in Pechenga on the Kola Peninsula must be reduced to a level not harming health and environment.
