Norilsk Nickel completed registration of products exported to EU

Norilsk Nickel has successfully completed registration of its products in compliance with the requirements of REACH Regulations, adopted in the European Union in December of 2006 and effective since 01.07.2007.

The Regulations establish a new system of substances circulation on the territory of EU that envisages registration, tracing of substances turnover and evaluation of hazard they present; and introduces limitations on the use of hazardous chemical substances. REACH requirements apply to MMC Norilsk Nickel products supplied to the European market. Transition to the new accounting system for substances currently presented at the EU market will take 11 years (2007-2018).

All substances with the annual output and import volumes exceeding 1 000 t were supposed to be registered by December 1, 2010. According to the European law, this requirement is essential for long-term production and marketing of such products. The purpose is to accumulate information on substances sold on the EU market and place it at users’ disposal.

Either producer or importer of a substance shall evaluate the hazard of production and usage of the substance taking into account its applications. For several years, while preparing for registration, producers’ consortia were compiling dossiers for every substance subject to registration. This information was presented to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki, established for REACH implementation. The dossiers are publicly available at ECHA’s web site.

The next registration deadline, June 1, 2013, is set for substances produced and imported in the amount ranging from 100 t to 1,000 t p.a. Finally, the time limit for registration of substances with the production output ranging from 1 t to 100 t p.a. is June 1, 2018.

MMC Norilsk Nickel evaluates EU market potential as high and thus favourable for selling its products. Therefore, the Company was one of the first in the mining industry to start following REACH requirements: preliminary registration was completed in time and large tonnage products were registered within permissible time limits. However, there are still a lot of tasks to be fulfilled: make transition to warning marking system, ensure registration at the next levels, work in producers’ consortia to update information contained in safety data sheets based on international scientific research results.