March 10, 2022: Battery producer EnerSys is suspending its operations in Russia, the company announced on March 3.
The company said it had started the process of indefinitely suspending its operations in the country, “following Russia’s illegal military action against a sovereign Ukraine”.
EnerSys president and CEO David Shaffer said: “We are deeply saddened by the violence in Ukraine and stand firmly with the Ukrainian people.
“As the situation continues to unfold, our top priority is the safety of our employees in Ukraine and in Russia. We are suspending our operations in Russia and will comply fully with all sanctions.”
The company has eight employees in Ukraine and 43 in Russia.
EnerSys said it does not expect the suspension to have a material impact on its financial results.
‘Quiet conference’
Meanwhile, the Ukraine crisis almost immediately spilled over to the regular INTERBAT conference of Russia’s battery storage association, which is held in Moscow each March.
This year, its international audience vanished — only one Indian and three Turkish firms attended.
One of the attendees, who Batteries International is not naming, said: “It was a quiet conference without any US or European representation. The general reaction from our Russian friends was that the Ukrainians were ‘our people’ and they said they couldn’t understand why it was happening.”
Life was complicated for all delegates by the fact that credit cards didn’t work and the rouble exchange rate widened to ridiculous levels — the difference for buying and selling the dollar was R75/R130.
Meanwhile, the London Metal Exchange (LME) was forced to halt nickel trading and cancel trades after prices doubled on March 8 to more than $100,000 per tonne.
The move came amid market panic sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which sent buyers scrambling for the metal crucial to EV batteries.
In a statement issued on March 9, the LME Group said it intended to reopen the market, “with trading continuing in an orderly manner, in an appropriate timeframe”.
