Asia Tech Wire (July 19) -- Chinese battery giant CATL (300750.SZ) late on Thursday denied reports that it was in talks with Russian mining giant Nornickel to build a joint venture plant.

This followed a Reuters report, citing people familiar with the matter, that said Nornickel was in talks with several Chinese battery companies, including CATL subsidiary Brunp Recycling and CNGR Advanced Material (300919.SZ), to build a factory jointly producing nickel material from Russian semi-finished products.

Nornickel is Russia's largest mining and metallurgical company and one of the world's largest producers of palladium, nickel, platinum and copper.

The report said the Russian company is trying to move a large amount of production from Russia to China, a major consumer, in order to circumvent Western sanctions against Russia amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Later on Thursday, Nornickel responded to Chinese media outlet Jiemian on the matter, saying it would disclose the company's major events in a timely manner according to the dissemination requirements.

And later that day, CATL told Jiemian, "The news is not true."

As of now, CNGR has not publicly responded to this.

Founded in 2005, Brunp Recycling is a CATL subsidiary that focuses on three business segments: recycling, resources and materials.