Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov plans to invest US$10 billion in Russian metal deposits acquired from former partner Vladimir Potanin, betting the global commodities rally will continue.

Prokhorov will invest the money in a dozen projects over the next five years as he seeks to become Russia`s second-biggest producer of nickel and titanium and a major miner of gold and copper, said Dmitry Razumov, chief executive officer of Prokhorov`s Onexim Holdings Ltd. "We firmly believe in the commodities super-cycle," Razumov told reporters in Moscow today after announcing the creation of Intergeo, Prokhorov`s new metals and mining holding.

The projects include Siberia`s Iisko-Tagulsk deposit, Russia`s biggest untapped nickel field, and the Bolshoi Seyim titanium reserve on the Kola Peninsula in northwest Russia. Commodities including oil, gold, nickel and copper have reached all-time highs in the last 14 months on surging demand from emerging markets, stoking inflation around the globe. Iisko-Tagulsk can produce 150,000t of nickel a year, second in Russia only to OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, said Intergeo CEO Maxim Finsky. Prokhorov is a former CEO of Norilsk Nickel, which is controlled by Potanin.

Finsky, who quit as Norilsk Nickel`s head of exploration earlier this month, said output of titanium dioxide at Bolshoi Seyim can reach 120,000t a year, which would put it behind Verkhnaya Salda, Ural Mountains-based OAO VSMPO-Avisma, the world`s biggest maker of the metal. Intergeo also expects to produce 17t of gold and 200,000t of copper annually, Finsky said. – Mining Journal