When Strzhalkovsky was hired in 2008, the general director’s employment contract was considerably changed. The director’s pay was raised with 30 percent and now amounts to 400 000 USD per month. His annual bonus was also raised from 59 million rubles to 3 million dollars, RIA Novosti writes.
The main share holder in Norilsk Nickel, Vladimir Potanin boosted his personal fortune from 2.1 billion USD in 2009 to 10.3 billion USD this year, making him Russia’s seventh richest man.
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Norilsk Nickel is the world’s leading producer of nickel and palladium. A significant part of company operations are made in the Kola Peninsula by regional subsidiary Kolskaya GMK, which operates nickel and copper smelters in towns of Nikel and Monchegorsk and mines in Zapolyarny on the Kola Peninsula.
Despite the financial crisis, mining and metallurgy giant Norilsk Nickel in 2009 more than quadrupled its year-on-year net profits, as BarentsObserver reported.
The company’s smelter in the town of Nikel near the Norwegian border is one of the largest polluters in the Barents Region. With an estimated emission of about 100,000 tons of sulfur dioxides (SO2) annually, the pollution from the factory affects the nature in Russia, Norway, Finland and Sweden.
Despite the company’s large profit, nothing is invested into cleaner production at the smelter in Nikel. In April 2010 Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg agreed that the cross-border pollution from the nickel-production in Pechenga on the Kola Peninsula must be reduced to a level not harming health and environment.
