镍业巨头诺里尔斯克接到俄罗斯史上最大环境损害罚单

作者:董存杰编译发布时间:2020-09-17

矿业网（www.mining.com）8月17日消息，俄罗斯镍业巨头诺里尔斯克股份有限公司（MMC Norilsk Nickel）的大股东和首席执行官弗拉基米尔·波塔宁（Vladimir Potanin）表示，发生在5月份的燃油泄漏事故造成的损失目前无法估算，环境治理工作可能需要持续到明年。目前，公司已向俄罗斯生态监管机构支出了21亿美元作为罚款和赔偿。

由于监管机构的罚款依据均采用环境损害系数上限值，诺里尔斯克对罚款数额提出了质疑。波塔宁认为事故对环境的具体损害还需要进一步评估。21亿美元，折合1480亿卢布将是俄罗斯历史上最大的环境损害罚款。目前该公司已花费了100亿卢布用于环境清理，其中85亿卢计入罚款。

诺里尔斯克计划先用吸附剂固定河岸上的泄漏燃料，留待以后处理。但生态学家认为，此举不利于保护苔原，并建议该公司将漏油清洗至水中收集。生态保护组织目前正在研究漏油是否会对当地居民赖以生存的鱼类和鹿造成影响。

波塔宁认为，虽然公司认为永久冻土融化是事故的原因之一，但人为原因也可能是罪魁祸首。由于政府对环境破坏采取零容忍态度，环境风险管控显得十分重要，公司对管理人员提出了更为严格的生态绩效指标。目前，公司正在实施大气除硫技术改造，用生石吸收废气中的二氧化硫，项目成本已达37亿美元。

专有名词：

诺里尔斯克股份有限公司（MMC Norilsk Nickel），弗拉基米尔·波塔宁（Vladimir Potanin）

原文：

Russian oil spill cleanup to stretch into 2021

MMC Norilsk Nickel’s Vladimir Potanin said it’s impossible to estimate the cost of damages from May’s massive fuel spill in the Arctic until the miner completes the clean-up, which may extend into next year.

Nornickel has set aside $2.1-billion after Russia’s ecological watchdog asked it to pay for the damage caused by the spill of about 150 000 barrels of diesel from a storage tank into a river system.

The miner is challenging the size of the fine, saying the watchdog used the highest damage coefficient, which assumes the company did nothing to mitigate the impact of the spill.

“How much fuel actually is left in the rivers and how much the ecosystem can be restored – that still has to be assessed,” billionaire CEO Potanin said in interview near Moscow.

The 148 billion rubles Nornickel has been asked to pay would represent the largest environmental fine in Russian history.

The company said it has collected 90% of the spilled fuel and spent 10 billion rubles on the clean-up — it wants 8.5-billion rubles of that to be counted as part of its fine — and plans to invest more in recreation for the area.

Nornickel put sorbent on river banks where there’s still fuel and planned to collect it later. But ecologists said that would be bad for tundra and advised washing the diesel back into the water to collect, a process the company has started and which will last until next year, Potanin said. It’s also looking at whether fish and deer crucial to the indigenous population have been affected.

The miner has said thawing permafrost contributed to the accident, the risks of which were underestimated by Nornickel and others too, Potanin said. It’s reviewing its risk management and because human errors could also be to blame, there will now be zero tolerance to breaching ecological protocols and stricter ecology key performance indicators for the management.

Nornickel plans to spend 13-billion rubles in the next two years replacing and upgrading infrastructure, and aims to ship in fuel when needed to cut down on the amount stored in tanks. The company also plans to switch to less dangerous fuel types, like gas, Potanin said.

Separately, the producer continues to work on its sulfur dioxide capturing project in Norilsk, where costs have reached about $3.7-billion, Potanin said. The gas will be turned into acid and then neutralized into gypsum by limestone. Nornickel found a limestone deposit nearby to develop and is preparing to build a tailings facility for the gypsum as well as sites for the capturing project.

(By Yuliya Fedorinova)