Norilsk Nickel Company of Russia has raised its investment forecast for the next decade by 6 billion US dollars.

Norilsk Nickel said it had raised its investment estimate for 2021-2030 by $6 billion to $35 billion to reflect higher construction costs and increased investment in energy infrastructure upgrading.

Its senior vice president of strategy said this would enable the world's largest palladium and refined nickel producer to invest more in upgrading production infrastructure, raising the mining group's production forecasts for 2030.

Sergei Dubovitsky said, "in 10 years, in addition to the figures we give, we have seen an increase of as much as $6 billion. But most of the growth will occur after 2025. We are basically talking about extending our investment cycle. "

The amount of investment by the mining group is important to its largest shareholder, businessman Vladimir Potanin, and aluminium producer Rusal, who have disputed the size of Nornickel's dividend.

The company had expected its investment to peak in 2026 and now expects that to happen in 2028.

After spending an average of $1.7 billion a year in the first eight years, Nornickel sees 2021 as a transitional year to enter the investment cycle, says Mr Dubovitsky.

He added that Noniker proposed an interim dividend of $3.2 billion and its management was expected to stick to its dividend policy and make the final payment in 2021.

Of the $6 billion in additional expenditure, about $1 billion is the result of higher prices of materials used in construction projects amid global inflation fuelled by the covid-19 pandemic.

The remaining additional capital expenditure of $5 billion was used to upgrade Nornickel's major energy and production infrastructure, which has been the focus of investors after a series of accidents in 2020-2021.