By John Helmer in Moscow Uralkali, Russia’s dominant potash exporter, has made an offer to compensate the costs of the state-owned Russian Railways Company (RZD) to build the bypass around the Berezinki sink-hole and mine subsidence. The offer was reported in a Moscow newspaper, and confirmed by a company source. The offer was contained in […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow Government officials refuse to provide details of the order to reopen an investigation into the two-year old collapse of Uralkali’s Mine-1 at Berezeniki. Uralkali, meanwhile, fears that a scheme of renationalization may have been started, targeting a takeover of Uralkali from its current shareholders. According to an Interfax wire service […]

by John Helmer - Friday, November 14th, 2008
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POTANIN IN BUY-BACK — IS DERIPASKA IN SELL-OUT? By John Helmer in Moscow The Bubble Metric Index (BMI) is a measure of the distance between the fantasy of money and financial reality. In the past month, it has been weighing unusually heavily on the oligarchs who own pieces of Norilsk Nickel, Russia’s largest mining company. […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow The Udokan copper contest has been won, but by whom? In April, Mineweb reported that Russia’s biggest copper contest was going to be a very private affair. Even if there are just two, possibly three contenders — we said at the time — predicting who will win over the next […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 10th, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow In antique legend, Icarus was the boy who, ignoring his father’s prudential warning, flew too close to the sun, melting the wax from his wings, and plummeting to his death as a consequence. In W.H. Auden’s modern reflection on the incident, noone witnessing the plunge cared much, while “the expensive […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 10th, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow Vladimir Kirillov, the new chief of Russia’s mine licence inspectorate, Rosprirodnadzor, has tried to fire Oleg Mitvol, his independent deputy, this week — after failing to oust Mitvol for the past seven months. In the annals of the federal Ministry of Natural Resources, Mitvol’s resistance is unique; as is the […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, September 4th, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow Oleg Deripaska, controlling shareholder of United Company Rusal, the world’s largest producer of primary aluminium, has reason to be an unhappy man. On Thursday evening, he called in a group of sympathetic reporters to explain how unhappy. “You can sit a cat and dog next to each other,”he said, “but […]

by John Helmer - Friday, August 8th, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow The maxim that one should see, hear, and speak no evil appears to have started out in ancient China. Confucius apparently added the obvious fourth – do no evil. It was natural that the maxim should cross the water to Japan, but far from clear why three monkeys with their […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow Eurochem, Russia’s diversified fertilizerproducer owned by Andrei Melnichenko, and still unlisted, has unveiled a series of ambitious plans to challenge Russia’s two largest potash miners, Uralkali (URKA:RU) and Silvinit (SILV:RU). According to Eurochem sources, the company will move from zero now to planned production of 2.3 million tonnes of potash […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow Lundin looks set for replacement on the Ozernoye base metals project. Lundin Mining Corporation (ticker LMC:US) is adamant that it will say nothing at all about its two-year old zinc and lead project in Russia, one of the largest in the world. Speculation that Lundin, a Canadian listed and Swedish […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 21st, 2008
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