Page 63 - bne IntelliNews Russia OUTLOOK 2025

Like oil exports that were successfully redirected from Europe to Asia, Chinese customer data confirm a similar thing is now happening with metals. Russia’s share of Chinese copper imports rose from 1.8% in 2022 to 10.4% in 2023, making Beijing one of the top three importers of Russian copper.
Russia supplied 25.7% of China’s aluminium imports in 2023, up from 12% in 2021. Although Russia’s share of Chinese nickel imports was modest at 3% in 2023, this was significantly up on a mere 0.56% in 2021.
Simultaneously, Russian metals producers have been integrating with Chinese value chains. In 2023, Rusal bought a 30% stake in Chinese alumina producer Hebei Wenfeng New Materials for $267mn. Rusal, heavily hit by the war in Ukraine, lost access to about 40% of its alumina supplies due to an Australian ban and the shutdown of its Ukrainian refinery in Mykolaiv, which was nationalised by Kyiv in 2023.
In April 2024, Potanin announced plans to relocate copper production to China by 2027 and form a local joint venture, though he did not specify partners. This likely aims to leverage Chinese lithium-ion battery technologies, crucial after Nornickel's cooperation with German firm BASF fell through in 2022. Potanin commented: “It is better to be inside the system than to watch from the outside as you get, so to speak, squeezed out.”
Despite lacking expertise in battery production, Nornickel and Russian nuclear giant Rosatom plan to develop one of Russia’s largest lithium deposits through their joint venture, Polar Lithium, expected to launch by 2026. With China holding 72% of global lithium refining capacity, Polar Lithium will likely supply the Chinese market predominantly. Russia has large lithium deposits but has until now not processed it and relied on Chinese imports instead.
“As Beijing’s competition with Washington over critical minerals intensifies, China and Russia are partnering on global metals exploration,” said Spivak.
And Russia is joining China in more international metallurgical investments in the Global South. In mid-2023, Rosatom and the Chinese investment group CITIC Guoan won a tender to develop lithium deposits in Bolivia (home to the world’s largest lithium reserves), beating a US bid backed by billionaire Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Rosatom and CITIC Guoan plan to invest over $1.4bn in the project, which envisages the construction of two lithium carbonate technology plants. Despite the concerns of US officials, this
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