Norilsk Nickel will sell in Asia the products not redeemed by European customers

The head of Norilsk Nickel, Vladimir Potanin, said that the Russian mining and metallurgical company plans to sell the volumes of products not bought out by European customers in the Southeast Asian market. According to him, the company will not be left without markets, despite the position of European countries.

“We will fight to maintain our position in these markets. Let’s not be capricious and behave like quarreling children in the sandbox. But everything that our traditional partners will not take, we will supply to the markets of Southeast Asia and other countries of the world, using already prepared logistics chains,” Mr. Potanin told reporters during a visit to the construction site of the Sulfur Program at the Nadezhinsky Metallurgical Plant (quote from “Interfax”).

He added that European clients are interested in Norilsk Nickel’s metal. “It is of high quality, logistically accessible, but due to known circumstances, some companies decide not to buy our metal because of an emotional assessment of the current situation,” the businessman said. According to him, some refuse from existing contracts “to their own detriment.”

By data in 2021, the European market provided half of Norilsk Nickel’s revenue – 53%. The share of Asia was 27%, the USA and South America – 15%. In 2022, it follows from the company’s data, the share of Europe decreased to 47%, while the share of Asia increased to 31% (revenue from the US market remained at 15%).

In the summer of 2022, Vladimir Potanin said that an alternative supply chain was being built through the port of Tangier in Morocco. This direction allowed redirecting the company’s products to China and the Southeast Asian market. Previously, the main products of Norilsk Nickel were supplied from Murmansk to the European market.

Lusine Balasyan