Lack of immediate resources and response planning required to swiftly react to such a major event.

1500 M USD

It was estimated the immediate cost of emergency relief activities would be 10 billion rubles (US$146 million), with a total clean-up cost of 100 billion rubles (US$1.5 billion), which would take five to ten years.

In June 2020, Rosprirodnadzor asked Norilsk to pay 148 billion rubles to cover damage caused by the massive spill, but Norilsk disagreed with the value. In February 2021, a court ordered Norilsk to pay US$2 billion (146 billion rubles) for the spill.

The oil spill had been contained using a series of specially constructed booms on the Ambarnaya river.

1. Drifting ice broke the booms that were specifically constructed on the Ambarnaya river.

2. The tank's failure would have been avoided if all piles had been installed into the bedrock as per their design.

3. The importance of secondary and tertiary containment measures should be taken into consideration.

4. The response measures were inadequate for major spill events and there was inadequate understanding of the spill flow to allow effective response planning operations, including booming plans and emergency access routes to be devised and installed.

5. Adequate ventilation under the tank, as per the design intentions, should be ensured to preserve the permafrost.

6. The design and installation of a permafrost monitoring system should be considered for all tanks.

7. Additional permafrost protection measures, such as thermosyphons, to be considered in view of the climate change impact.

1. The power plant did not report the incident for two days, while trying to contain the situation on their own (statement by the head of Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry, Yevgeny Zinichev).

2. Slow response by the local authorities (criticism expressed by the Russian President Vladimir Putin).

3. The fuel tanks at the plan and their safety were not properly maintained (criticism expressed by the Russian President Vladimir Putin towards the chairman and major shareholder of Norilsk Nickel).

4. As a result of this incident, the founder of Rusal (Oleg Deripaska, which in 2019 owned 28% of Nornickel), urged management changes at Nornickel (which is 35% owned by Potanin's Olderfrey Holdings Ltd.).

5. Due to the absence of a management system that allowed for the control and mitigation of such events, the potential implications of failure could not be appreciated sufficiently.

6. Compliance mind-set rather than risk understanding and risk management led to missed warning signs during the "Industrial Safety Expertise" in 2018, associated with the tank inspection.

7. Although not required by the regulations for the tank design, the lack of permafrost monitoring was part of the contributing factors to the oil spill.

8. A management system should be developed with improved integrity for tanks of primary containment, considering improved inspection and maintenance operations, anti-corrosion measures and possibly decommissioning of tanks in case of significant risk of catastrophic failure.

9. Carry out emergency response exercises.

1. Russian law to be amended to prevent similar accidents in the future (order by the Russian President Vladimir Putin to officials).

2. In the aftermath of the Norilsk spill, Russia's Prosecutor General's office ordered safety checks at all dangerous installations built on the permafrost in Russia's Arctic.

1. Clean-up efforts were anticipated to be difficult as there were no emergency response access routes and roads. Also, the rivers were too shallow for boats and barges.