Speaking during Norilsk Nickel’s Strategy Days in London, Vladimir Potanin said that:
- Development of the
electric-vehicle industry will lead to increasing demand for nickel and cobalt, but it won’t happen that fast. - Demand for palladium won’t fall as there will still be a lot of gasoline powered cars. And regulations are getting stricter.
- Nornickel signed a deal with BASF SE this year to experiment with boosting its sales of metals to battery producers.
- The deal with BASF SE will be a test project and, if successful, Norilsk Nickel may start production of industrially important amounts by 2020.
- Nornickel will hold off making investments in
large-scale output for electric cars while the technology is still in flux, and the company is ready to reconsider its vision as trends change. Norilsk Nickel is not aventure-capital company. It’s an industrial company and it needs to invest in winning technologies. - There are discussions to extend the peace deal between Norilsk Nickel’s shareholders, which is due to expire in 2022, for a further five years.
- Embarking on the shoot out looks too expensive and would mean a major increase in Potanin’s own exposure to Nornickel. The mechanism of the shoot out could be used in the event of a «dead end» in shareholder relations, or if one shareholder had a pressing need to sell assets. «It’s a possible exit from an impossible situation», said Potanin. «I think other shareholders also see this instrument as a last refuge».
The full interview is available at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/