The Russian mining and metallurgical company Nornickel intends to invest more than $12 billion to develop production over the next five years, the company's head, Vladimir Potanin, said on Monday.

NOVO-OGARYOVO (Moscow Region) (UrduPoint news / Sputnik - 10th December 2018 ) -The Russian mining and metallurgical company Nornickel intends to invest more than $12 billion to develop production over the next five years, the company 's head, Vladimir Potanin, said on Monday.

"We are currently implementing a fairly unprecedented investment program: over the next five years, we will invest more than $12 billion to boost production. It is very important, as for many years we have been guided by the strategy of maintaining current production volumes," Potanin said at the meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Along with nickel and copper, the company is close to produce the record volumes of palladium and platinum, which are in high demand in the market due to the tightening environmental requirements, Potanin pointed out.

He added that the task of maintaining the current volumes of production was becoming increasingly challenging due to decreasing concentration of metal in the ore, however the new investment program would help the company to switch to the strategy of growth.

According to Potanin, the program is expected to step up metal production by 20-25 percent, while the volume of extracted ore will have to be increased by 50 percent.