2024-09-12 07:08:17
Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that Moscow should consider curbing exports of uranium, titanium and nickel in response to Western sanctions, Reuters reported.
Putin’s statement to government ministers caused nickel prices to rise and uranium mining stocks around the world to rise, the agency said.
He said similar restrictions could be imposed on other goods and noted that Russia is a major producer of natural gas, diamonds and gold.
The measures should not be taken hastily and should not cause damage to Russia, the Russian president added.
Russia is a leader in reserves of a number of strategic raw materials, such as natural gas (22 percent of world reserves), gold (almost 23 percent), diamonds (almost 55 percent), Putin added.
“Please look at some of the types of goods that we supply to the world market. (…) Maybe we should think about some restrictions – on uranium, titanium, nickel,” said the Russian president, addressing Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
After Putin’s speech today, the price of nickel for delivery in December rose by 2.5 percent to $16,110 per metric ton, according to data from the London Metal Exchange (LME), writes BTA.
China is the largest buyer of nickel from Russia, importing 38,026 tonnes last year, accounting for 38 percent of Russian nickel exports, according to Trade Data Monitor. Almost 30 percent of Russia’s nickel exports, or 29,172 tons, were bought from the Netherlands last year for transshipment to other European countries.
Shares of uranium mining companies jumped after Putin’s speech.
The book of Canadian mining companies “NexGen Energy”, “Cameco” and “Denison Mines” increased by between 5.2 and 5.4 percent.
Russia is the world’s fourth-largest uranium producer and owns about 44 percent of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity.
In 2023, the US and China topped the list of countries importing uranium from Russia, followed by South Korea, France, Kazakhstan and Germany.
In May, US President Joe Biden signed a law banning imports of enriched uranium from Russia, a trade worth about $1 billion a year.
Russia is also the world’s third-largest producer of titanium sponge, which is turned into a metal for industrial applications in the aerospace, marine and automotive industries, but has low titanium mineral reserves of its own.
Russian mining giant Nornickel is the largest producer of refined nickel in the world.