Notification of the approval was announced by the European Commission on 1 February.

The merger of RUSAL, SUAL and the alumina assets of Glencore was announced in October 2006. Under the terms of the merger agreement, RUSAL's shareholder will own 66% of the new company, with SUAL's shareholders owning 22% and Glencore 12%, respectively.

The combined company will own bauxite mining, alumina refinery, aluminium smelting and foil production facilities. The new company becomes the world’s largest aluminium and alumina producer, employing more than 110,000 people in 17 countries on five continents.

The company will account for approximately 12.5% of global aluminium and 16% of global alumina production, respectively. The annual volume of production will be approximately 4 million tonnes of aluminium and 11 million tonnes of alumina.

Commenting on the EU's approval of the merger agreement, RUSAL Chief Executive, Alexander Bulygin said: «The EC's approval of our merger agreement is a major milestone towards completing the transaction. The transaction has a compelling industrial logic and offers significant synergies for further growth.»

Further information about the transaction can be found here: www.aluminiumleader.com.

Note to editors:
The unified company will include RUSAL’s following assets: Bratsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novokuznetsk, Sayanogorsk Aluminium Smelters, Achinsk Alumina Plant, Nikolaev and Boksitogorsk Alumina Refineries, Friguia Alumina Plant (Guinea), Compagnie des Bauxites de Kindia (Guinea), Bauxite Company of Guyana, a stake in the Queensland Alumina Refinery (Australia), Eurallumina (Italy) as well as ARMENAL, SAYANAL and a cathode plant in China.

SUAL Group will contribute Irkutsk, Urals, Kandalaksha, Bogoslovsk, Nadvoitsy, Volgograd and Volkhov Aluminium Smelters, Zaporozhye Aluminium Combine, Pikalevo Alumina Refinery, SUBR, Urals Foil, as well as Silicon, SUAL-Silicon-Ural and SUAL-PM.

Glencore will contribute the following alumina refineries: Aughinish in Ireland, Windalco and Alpart in Jamaica and Eurallumina in Italy, along with Kubikenborg Aluminium Smelter in Sweden.

Information about the companies:
RUSAL is the world’s third largest primary aluminium producer, providing primary aluminium and value-added casthouse products to customers in 50 countries. Headquartered in Moscow, with operations in 9 regions of Russia and 13 countries globally, RUSAL now accounts for 75% of aluminium production in Russia and 10% internationally. RUSAL has 47,000 employees and was established in March 2000 through a merger of several largest aluminium smelters and alumina refineries in the CIS.

SUAL Group (www.sual.com) is a vertically integrated company, one of the world’s 10 largest aluminium producers. It unites enterprises that extract bauxite, refine alumina and produce primary aluminium, silicon, aluminium semi-finished and finished products. SUAL Group’s enterprises form a full production cycle, from bauxite extraction (over 5.4 million tonnes a year), alumina refining (about 2.3 million tonnes a year) and primary aluminium production (more than 1 million tonnes a year) to the manufacture of aluminium semi-finished and finished products.

Glencore (www.glencore.com) is a leading privately held, diversified natural resources company with worldwide activities in the smelting, refining, mining, processing, purchasing, selling and marketing of metals and minerals, energy products and agricultural products. Glencore operates on a global scale, marketing physical commodities produced in its industrial assets or purchased from third parties to industrial consumers, such as those in the automotive, steel, power generation, oil and food processing industries. Glencore also provides financing, logistics and other services to producers and consumers of commodities. These activities are supported by substantial strategic industrial assets relating to Glencore’s core commodities. Energy products and commodities are marketed and coordinated primarily in Glencore's headquarters in Baar, Switzerland and through the offices of its subsidiaries in London, Stamford and Singapore.