Russia’s largest mining company, Nornickel, is moving all of its palladium refining to the Kola Peninsula.
Russian mining firm Nornickel will this month transfer all of its palladium refining operations to Monchegorsk on the Kola Peninsula, just a few hundred kilometres from the Finnish border.
Until now, the company refined its palladium in the Siberian city of Norilsk, which is more than 2,000km east of the new site. According to Nornickel, its Monchegorsk facility produces around 40 percent of global palladium refining.
The company said the move is intended to improve production efficiency and increase the recovery of precious metals.
Conservationists concerned
The plan has prompted concern among environmental experts in Finland, who say that expanding industrial activity on the Kola Peninsula could increase pollution affecting both Russia and Finland.
“Massive increases in industrial infrastructure production volumes will undoubtedly cause local and regional emissions impacts on both the atmosphere and waterways. There may also be impacts on the Finnish side,” said Hanna Halmeenpää, chair of the Finnish Nature Conservation Association.
In a press release, Nornickel said the environmental impact of the expansion would be minimised through new gas-cleaning technology.
According to Halmeenpää, who studied the environmental impacts of the Monchegorsk mining complex in the early 2000s, pollution from the area had previously reached Finnish Lapland.
“The effects of air pollution in the past have been visible in northeastern Lapland, for example, in conifer needles. The source of acid rain emissions at that time was clearly from Monchegorsk and [the town of] Nikel,” she said.
She added that Finland’s extensive air-quality monitoring network would help detect any future cross-border impacts.
Pekka Suomela, executive director of the Finnish Mining Association, also noted the area’s history of pollution, recalling the acid emissions produced by Kola Peninsula mines during the Soviet era.
Critical metal
Suomela added that both Finland and Europe remain dependent on imported palladium, which is used in automotive catalytic converters as well as the chemical and electronics industries.
Russia is the world’s second-largest producer of palladium after South Africa.