Norilsk Nickel closes plant, says emissions will be slashed
The nickel smelter in Norilsk is the company’s oldest and has for decades been among the biggest polluters in the Taymyr peninsula.
The company, the world’s leading producer of nickel, says the plant from year 1942 will be fully closed by October this year. The smelter annually emits about 380,000 tons of sulphur dioxide and is the biggest single pollution source in downtown Norilsk, a city of about 170,000 people.
The closure of the plant has been planned for years. The modernized Nadezhdinsky plant outside the city will now take over all nickel processing, Norilsk Nickel informs in a press release.
«The implementation of this complex project allows us to modify the production chain and significantly improve the ecology of Norilsk,» says Aleksandr Ryumin, head of Norilsk Nickel’s operations in Taymyr.
Norilsk has for years been among the world’s top ten most polluted cities. The closure of the downtown plant will reduce emissions in the region with about 15 percent. However, Norilsk will remain one of the most polluted places on earth with about 1,5 million tons of sulphur emission per year, newspaper Vedomosti reports.
The measures taken in Norilsk might raise hope also in the Koia Peninsula, where Norilsk Nickel has its other main production facilities. In Nikel, the border town to Norway and Finland, emissions from the aging nickel plant annually emits about 100,000 tons of sulphur dioxide and is a major polluter of the surrounding vulnerable ecosystem.
