Russia’s Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo) is seeking RUB 58.7 billion ($806 million) from Russian mining company Nornickel in compensation for an Arctic fuel spill last year.

In March, the company already paid a record fine of RUB 146 billion in after a judgement by Krasnoyarsk’s Arbitration Court. The miner initially blamed melting permafrost for the collapse of the fuel tank but an investigation by the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources found faults in its construction and maintenance. Nornickel’s also paid an additional RUB 684 million to the Russian authorities of the Krasnoyark region in compensation for the fuel spill.

Now, the miner said that the amount of the new fine by Rosrybolovstvo is overstated, Kallanish notes.

“It exceeds by many times the estimates prepared by specialised scientific institutes, which have assessed the impact of this incident on aquatic bioresources,” Nornickel commented on its web site. “Once the management receives and studies the statement from Rosrybolovstvo, it intends to challenge the claim as well as the methodology applied by the agency to calculate the damage in court.”

Nornickel decreased nickel and copper production in the first half of the year due to accidents at its key facilities. In January-June, nickel production fell by 26% on-year to 79,283 tonnes. Copper output amounted to 172 692 t, down by 28%. 

The enterprise foresees to produce this year about 190,000-200,000 t of nickel and 335,000-355,000 t of copper, excluding Bystrinsky GOK.

Earlier, Nornickel’s president and co-owner of the company Vladimir Potanin said that his company could lose $500m after the introduction of new Russian export duties for non-ferrous metals of at least 15% from 1 August to 31 December. Export duty rates for copper will be $1,126/t and for nickel $2,321/t.