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Putin suggests restrictions on uranium, titanium and

nickel

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Any limits should not harm Russia, he tells ministers

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Nickel prices and uranium mining company shares rise

MOSCOW, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir

Putin said on Wednesday that Moscow should consider limiting

exports of uranium, titanium and nickel in retaliation for

Western sanctions.

Putin's remarks to government ministers prompted a rise in

nickel prices and drove shares in uranium mining firms higher.

In televised comments, he said such restrictions could also

be introduced for other commodities, and noted that Russia was a

major producer of natural gas, diamonds and gold.

But he said that measures did not need to be taken

"tomorrow", and must not cause damage to Russia itself.

"Russia is the leader in reserves of a number of strategic

raw materials: for natural gas, this is almost 22% of world

reserves, for gold - almost 23%, for diamonds - almost 55%,"

Putin said.

"Please take a look at some of the types of goods that we

supply to the world market ... Maybe we should think about

certain restrictions - uranium, titanium, nickel," he told Prime

Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

"We just mustn't do anything to harm ourselves," he added.

Western countries have sharply cut purchases of Russian oil

and gas since the start of the war in Ukraine but Russia remains

a major supplier of metals to world markets, so a cut or halt to

its exports could cause disruption, analysts said.

Three-month nickel on the London Metal Exchange

(LME) surged 2.6% to $16,145 per metric ton shortly after

Putin's remarks.

Russia is home to Nornickel , the world's biggest

refined nickel producer. It is a major nickel supplier to China

and Europe. The company did not immediately respond to a request

for comment.

More than a fifth of the nickel in LME-registered

warehouses is of Russian origin, data showed on Tuesday. The

metal is used in batteries and in alloys with a wide range of

applications including armour plating and turbine blades.

CANADIAN URANIUM MINERS' SHARES JUMP

Shares in uranium miners jumped following the news, with

Canadian miners NexGen Energy ( NXE ), Cameco ( CCJ ) and

Denison Mines ( DNN ) up between 5.2% and 5.4%

Russia is the world's sixth largest uranium producer and has

about 44% of global uranium enrichment capacity.

In 2023 the U.S. and China topped the list of Russian

uranium importers, followed by South Korea, France, Kazakhstan

and Germany.

In May, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a ban on

enriched uranium imports from Russia, a trade worth around $1

billion annually. However, it contained waivers in case of

supply concerns that would allow the Department of Energy to

maintain normal levels of Russian uranium imports through 2027.

Russia accounted for 27% of the enriched uranium supplied to

U.S. commercial nuclear reactors last year.

"It will be really hard to replace, especially in the short

term, the next 2-3 years," said Citi analyst Arkady Gevorkyan.

"Western enrichers are only making plans to build additional

enrichment capacity, which would require at least three years to

be completed. We anticipate that utilities in the U.S. might be

able to partially replace it by importing low enriched uranium

from China."

Russia is also the world's third largest producer of

titanium sponge, which is turned into metal for industrial

applications in the aerospace, marine and auto industries, but

has low titanium mineral reserves of its own.

Russia's largest titanium sponge maker VSMPO-Avisma, partly

owned by sanctioned defence conglomerate Rostec, supplied

titanium to both Boeing and Airbus before the Ukraine war.

Canada has placed VSMPO-Avisma under sanctions but has

granted Airbus a waiver to allow it to use Russian titanium in

its manufacturing.

Boeing stopped buying titanium from Russia less than two

weeks after the start of the war with Ukraine in 2022.

Russian customs data shows that United States still buys

Russian titanium, but the biggest purchasers are France, China

and Germany.