Norilsk Nickel plans to spend $1.1 billion by 2016 to develop an eastern Siberian copper field and boost output of the highly conductive metal by 16 percent.
The Bystrinsky deposit is expected to yield 62,000 tons of copper and 6.3 tons of gold in concentrate a year, first deputy chief executive Yury Filippov said. Norilsk plans to build a processing plant at the site by the end of 2016, he said.
Norilsk seeks to expand copper production to diversify away from nickel. Norilsk will mine as much as 2.16 million tons of iron ore concentrate a year as a byproduct at Bystrinsky.
(Bloomberg)