Norilsk Shareholders Moving Toward Accord -Putin

NORILSK, Sep. 1 -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said shareholders of Norilsk Nickel (GMKN.MM) had moved forward to resolve a dispute and called for nickel and copper export duties to be linked to global prices.

"It is good I could not come a week ago. During this time shareholders, management and the government have been working on the company's problems, and it seems to me there is some movement forward," Putin told a meeting in the Arctic town of Norilsk on Tuesday.

The world's largest producer of nickel and palladium became a battleground when Oleg Deripaska -- the owner of UC RUSAL (0486.HK), the world's top aluminium producer -- bought a 25 percent stake in Norilsk, putting him on equal footing with long-time owner Vladimir Potanin.

Both Deripaska and Potanin were present at the meeting, held at Norilsk's copper plant. Government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had no plans to meet the tycoons separately. Putin had postponed a visit to the plant scheduled for last week.

Putin also said he wanted to rethink export duties for nickel and copper to link them better to global prices for the metals, creating a duty formula similar to the one used for oil exports.

"There is an idea to create a flexible formula, like in the oil industry, so that the fiscal burden fluctuates together with global prices for nickel and copper," Putin said.

Russia lifted the copper and nickel tariffs in February of 2009 to help Norilsk and other producers, but it has since restored the nickel tariff.

"Now the situation has stabilised, global prices are at a sufficiently high level to guarantee the plant's profitability. So the question of the duty's adjustment arises again," Putin said. He said the formula should be found quickly and suggested that some in the government were proposing a different solution "which neither shareholders nor management will like". Putin did not elaborate.