Russian Copper Co to build new nickel complex

MOSCOW, Feb 21 (Reuters) - The Russian Copper Co, the country's third-largest copper producer, plans to invest $160 million building a complex to produce nickel in the Urals region of Chelyabinsk from 2009, the company said on Thursday.

The company has already started building a mine and an ore enrichment plant, Uralgidronikel, at the Kulikovskaya group of nickel and cobalt deposits, RCC said on its Web site, www.rmk-group.ru.

The design capacity of the plant to produce nickel metal, a vital component of stainless steel, is expected to be 7,000 tonnes per year. RCC said it plans to launch the first stage of the complex in 2009.

The world's top nickel miner, Norilsk Nickel (GMKN.MM) (NKELyq.L), produced 295,209 tonnes of the metal last year. Yuzhuralnikel, a unit of coal miner and steel maker Mechel (MTL.N) (MTLR.RTS) and Russia's second-largest producer, produced 17,140 tonnes.

Russia's third-largest nickel producer, Ufaleynickel, has capacity to produce 15,000 tonnes a year of the metal. Its 2007 output results are not yet available. (Reporting by Aleksandras Budrys; editing by Michael Roddy)