en.Wedoany.com Reported - Vladimir Potanin, President of Norilsk Nickel, stated during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that the company has significantly improved its performance under the federal "Clean Air" project, achieving a twofold overfulfillment of its obligations this year, compared to a 1.5-fold overfulfillment last year.

Norilsk Nickel is one of the world's largest producers of refined nickel and high-grade nickel, as well as the largest producer of palladium globally. The "Sulfur Programme" implemented by the company in the Norilsk industrial area is the largest environmental initiative under the federal "Clean Air" project, aimed at reducing sulfur dioxide emissions in stages. The program involves constructing flue gas capture and treatment facilities at the Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant, converting metallurgical gases into sulfuric acid and further neutralizing them into gypsum. Since the beginning of 2026, these facilities have captured and treated 160,000 tons of sulfur dioxide.

Regarding import substitution, Potanin noted that Norilsk Nickel's team "has completed the Sulfur Programme almost in a heroic mode." The company hopes to rely solely on Russian research and development to complete the remaining part of the program, or, in the worst-case scenario, with the help of friendly jurisdictions and their partners. Potanin pointed out that the company is working to completely eliminate dependence on technologies from other countries, which were previously quite difficult to operate.

Additionally, Norilsk Nickel plans to achieve an ore extraction volume of over 17 million tons in the Norilsk industrial area in 2026, which will be a historic record for the company. The company has also successfully reversed the trend of declining labor productivity and is further improving efficiency through automation, robotization of mining operations, and the application of artificial intelligence. In 2025, the introduction of artificial intelligence technology alone brought the company an economic benefit of approximately 10 billion rubles.