Russia’s Nornickel, one of the world’s largest producers of nickel and the largest producer of palladium, on Thursday maintained its nickel production outlook for 2025 at 196,000-204,000 metric tons.
Nornickel said production of nickel rose by 18% to 54,000 metric tons in the third quarter from the previous three months, when it cut shipments of raw materials from its Dudinka port in the Arctic due to seasonal flooding.
“The increase was attributed to higher volumes of processed raw materials accumulated during the second quarter,” Nornickel said.
It added that production of palladium fell by 6% in the third quarter to 617,000 ounces, also due to a pause in navigation in Dudinka port since palladium has a longer production cycle.
The company blamed a decline in nickel and palladium production in the first nine months of the year, of 4% and 6% respectively, on the need to replace Western mining equipment.
“The adjustment was driven by a temporary decline in ore output owing to the gradual transition to new mining equipment at Polar Division as part of the import substitution program,” said Nornickel’s chief operating officer Evgeniy Fedorov.
(By Anastasia Lyrchikova and Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Kirsten Donovan)
