(goarctic.ru) - Polar Lithium LLC, a joint venture between Norilsk Nickel and Atomredmetzoloto (the mining division of Rosatom), received in February 2023 a license to develop the Kolmozerskoye lithium deposit located in the Murmansk Province. And Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said that "the development of the field will give impetus to the creation of a new industry for the production of domestic batteries, high-tech products for the nuclear industry, the space industry, transport, and activities in the Arctic zone of Russia." Vladimir Masloboev, Advisor to the General Director of the Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Technical Sciences, comments:
“Scientists from the Arctic have been waiting for news about the beginning of the development of the Kolmozerskoye field for more than 50 years. In the seventies, the Institute of Chemistry and Technology of Rare Elements and Mineral Raw Materials of the Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences intensively studied the mineral raw materials of this region of the Murmansk Province, which was named Kolmozero-Voronya. A number of deposits were discovered here - along with the Kolmozerskoye spodumene deposit as a source of lithium, which is scarce today, deposits were studied for the production of cesium, tantalum, niobium, beryllium, molybdenum and even gold. The institute created technologies for processing spodumene to produce high-purity lithium, including sulfuric acid technology, which fits well into the technological schemes of the Kola Mining and Metallurgical Company, a division of Norilsk Nickel on the Kola Peninsula.
The planned production of lithium carbonate and hydroxide in the amount of 45,000 tons per year will open more than a thousand new jobs and will make it possible to replace the import of both lithium raw materials and battery components to Russia. The partnership between Norilsk Nickel and Rosatom will provide the project with the maximum set of competencies and joint integration into all areas of the battery industry - both in the production of vehicles and in the production of energy storage devices, because the cobalt, nickel, and copper necessary for the production of batteries are already produced by Norilsk Nickel.
I would like to note that the deposit of flake graphite on the Kola Peninsula is also waiting for its development.
Norilsk Nickel's intentions to conduct an ethnological examination and to apply the FPIC procedure, free prior informed consent to a field development project, once again testify to Nornickel's high social responsibility in the regions of its operation - in this case, to the representatives of the indigenous peoples of the Murmansk Province".
