Russia's Norilsk says to revise 2009 investments

MOSCOW, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest nickel producer, will revise its investment programme for next year due to a decline in metals prices, Chief Financial Officer Oleg Lobanov said on Tuesday. "There is no doubt that the investments will be revised," Lobanov told reporters on the fringes of an Adam Smith Institute conference. "We are ready for a tough 2009." He declined to give figures, saying the company was continuing to work out its investment programme for 2009 and expected to formulate it in the middle of December. Norilsk has estimated its capital expenditure for 2008 at $2 billion, with the bulk of this to be invested in upgrades at its Polar and Kola units in Arctic Russia. The price of nickel was around $10,500 a tonne on Tuesday, around a fifth of its record high of $51,800 in May 2007. Lobanov said the project to develop the huge Udokan copper field in Siberia, with which Norilsk has been linked, was too risky at current prices. He said it could only be developed with government support and a copper price of $6,000 per tonne. Copper was trading at around $4,700 on Tuesday in London. The price has fallen on fears of lower consumption of the metal in China due to the financial crisis. Metalloinvest, the iron and steel firm founded by billionaire Alisher Usmanov, holds the licence to develop Udokan. Usmanov told Reuters last week he had asked the government for aid in developing the field. Metalloinvest has also said it would team up with state conglomerate Russian Technologies to develop Udokan and would consider inviting more potential partners, including Norilsk.