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Mining began in the Norilsk area in the 1920s. The Soviet government established the Norilsk Combine in 1935 and passed control to the NKVD. In 1943, Norilsk produced 4,000 tonnes of refined nickel and in 1945 hit the target figure of 10,000 tonnes. The mining and metal production originally used forced labour from the Gulag system.
In 1993, after the fall of the Soviet Union, a joint-stock company called RAO Norilsk Nickel was created. Two years later, control over the deeply indebted company, which was bleeding cash at a rate of about $2 million a day against the background of falling nickel prices, was sold to a private company, Interros. By the end of privatization in 1997, the company had moved into the black, and workers were being paid. The current average pay exceeds $1,000 per month with an annual paid leave of two to three months. Nevertheless, the working and living conditions in Norilsk remain harsh, although they are improving as the company shuts down old factories that are the source of excessive pollution.In July 2000, Norilsk Nickel joined forces with the St. Petersburg Research Institute of the Arctic and Antarctic , to investigate the potential use of decommissioned nuclear powered submarines, both from the United States and Russia, to transport materials along the Northern Sea Route ). Overhaul and refit costs came to $72–80 million per submarine, which included modifying its ice-breaking bow to cut through ice up to 215 cm thick in seawater and up to 150 cm in the freshwater mouth of the Yenisei. Decommissioned Typhoon submarines were expected to transport up to 12,000 tonnes of supplies and nickel between Dudinka and either Murmansk or Arkhangelsk. In 2000, the Murmansk Shipping Company provided icebreaker services at a charge of $11.35 per tonne of cargo. Three submarines - the project feasibility threshold - were scheduled for refit and overhaul between 2000 and 2003.However, the stakeholders failed to reach an agreement as to who would conduct and cover the refit and overhaul of the submarines. Furthermore, money was not the only issue. Under the existing international agreements, decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines from the two countries’ navies had to be dismantled. Should this obstacle be addressed, subsequent ownership of the refitted submarines also remained unclear: whether they would remain the assets of the Ministry of Defense or would be transferred to another governmental agency. One of the options suggested by Nornickel was to establish a joint transportation company that would lease the vessels.In 2002, Nornickel accounted for the most of MMP's shipping along the Northern Sea Route. In 2008, Aker Yards signed a contract with Norilsk Nickel for the delivery of four container/cargo ships for Arctic operations, with an option for a fifth.In 2002, MMC Norilsk Nickel began purchasing gold mining assets, which were spun off in 2005 as Polyus Gold.In 2003, the company took control of Stillwater Mining Company, the only palladium producer in the U.S. Stillwater operates a platinum group metals facility in Stillwater, Montana. In November 2010, Norilsk Nickel announced the sale of Stillwater.Throughout 2007, Norilsk acquired a host of mining and metallurgical assets abroad, transforming into a multinational company with operations in Australia, Botswana, Finland, Russia, South Africa, and the United States. Norilsk Nickel signed its key deal on June 28, 2007, acquiring about 90 percent of Canada's LionOre Mining International Ltd, the world's tenth-largest nickel producer at the time. This takeover, valued at $6.4 billion, was the biggest foreign acquisition by a Russian company at the time, making Norilsk Nickel the world's largest nickel producer.On February 27, 2008, Norilsk Nickel diversified into the coal mining industry through North Star LLC by obtaining mining rights to the amount of 33.6 million rubles for the estimated 5.7 billion tonnes of coal at the Syradasai Field near the port of Dikson in the Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District . In the coal mining industry, it competed with Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. By the estimates of North Star LLC , a firm affiliated with Nornickel, developing the field would require an investment of $1.5 billion, which including the necessary expansion of the port of Dikson, another Nornickel asset. The only competitor for the rights to the Syradasai Field was Golevskaya Mining Company LLC . The Syradasai Field is 105 to 120 km southeast of Dikson in the Taimyr-Turukhansk support zone . A 120-kilometer road and railway was expected to connect the deep-sea port on Cape Chaika to the massive coal deposit by 2019. CC VostokUgol or Vostok Coal planned to export up to 10 million tonnes of coal annually from the open-pit mine to Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions.In 2018, North Star LLC changed owners to become part of businessman Roman Trotsenko's AEON Group. Neither Nornickel nor AEON disclosed the transfer of ownership terms.In 2016 Nornickel ranked below 65 other oil, gas and mining companies in a list of 92 involved in onshore resource extraction above the Arctic Circle, in terms of handling indigenous rights.In the Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index , Norilsk Nickel is ranked No. 38 out of 120 oil, gas, and mining companies involved in resource extraction north of the Arctic Circle.
