KRASNOYARSK, December 20. /TASS/. The Norilsk Nickel Company (Nornickel) tests six projects of industrial exoskeletons, which will be used for work in complicated conditions, the company’s Vice President Dmitry Pristanskov told the Krasnoyarsk Region’s legislators on Thursday.

The devices are designed to improve productivity and industrial safety.

"We have been working on six models, which presently undergo trials at Nornickel’s Polar Branch and at leading Russian industrial companies," he said, adding the models had been designed by Digital Lab, Nornickel’s R&D unit.

According to him, industrial exoskeletons reduce load on spine and legs and carry up to 90% of the weight when a person lifts as much as 60 kg.

Norilsk Nickel is a diversified mining and metallurgical company, the world’s largest producer of refined nickel and palladium and a leading producer of platinum, cobalt, copper and rhodium. The company also produces gold, silver, iridium, selenium, ruthenium and tellurium. The company’s units are located at the Norilsk Industrial District, on the Kola Peninsula and Chita region in Russia as well as in Finland and South Africa.