Norilsk Nickel has $6.1 billion in debt
The company is now discussing with banks about the possibility of refinancing its debt by issuing a $1 billion Eurobond in the first half of next year.
A banking source says to Reuters that Norilsk Nickel is in talks on various ways of debt refinancing, including placing a Eurobond, which would be worth at least $1 billion (€666 million). Reuter’s source says this may happen in the second quarter of 2010.
By the end of the first half of 2009, Norilsk Nickel’s debt was $6.1 billion (€4.06 billion), of which 48 percent was short-term debt, according to Reuters.
Norilsk Nickel operates mines and smelters in Norilsk in Siberia. On the Kola Peninsula the company has mines in Zapolyarny and a nickel smelting plant in Nikel near the border to Norway. Also, in Monchegorsk, south of Murmansk, the company operates a nickel and copper smelter.
Last week, the Norwegian government announced that the Norwegian Pension Fund has sold all its shares in Norilsk Nickel because the company’s factories on the Taimyr Peninsula are afflicting environmental damages which clashes with the fund’s guidelines, as reported by BarentsObserver.
The shares which were sold has a value of NOK 328,6 million (€ 39 million). That is approx. 0,4 percent of the shares in Norilsk Nickel.
Visiting the Kola Peninsula last week, General Director of Norilsk Nickel, Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, said the company will increase its mining production in Zapolyarny on the Kola Peninsula, as reported by BarentsObserver.
A total of three billion RUB will be invested in the region only in 2010, Strzhalkovsky said, MBnews.ru reported.
