Record profits for iron-ore miner LKAB in Arctic Sweden
The Kiruna-based mining company doubled sales and posted an operating profit of 9,1 billion Swedish kroner (€898 million) in the second quarter compared with same period last year.
Iron ore was sold for an average of $200 per ton. The ore is sent by train from Kiruna across the border to Norway’s ice-free port of Narvik and shipped to European iron and steel producers.
LKAB says in a statement that expanding capacity of the railway remains a matter of urgency to meet longer term demands.
“More tonnes delivered at a higher price per tonne gives us a stronger basis for financing the development and the huge investments ahead of us in the coming 15–20 years to create a competitive LKAB. We are implementing a technology shift that will reduce our customers carbon emissions by 35 million tonnes, which is more than two thirds of Sweden’s total emissions,” says Jan Moström, President and CEO of LKAB.
Moström says the increase in income helps strengthen the company’s ongoing transformation towards a sustainable future.
Together with electricity producer Vattenfall and steel producer SSAB, the LKAB aims to be the first in the world to make hydrogen-reduced sponge iron. First at the HYBRIT pilot plant, later in full-scale production.
Part of the plan includes carbon free mining in Kiruna, by introducing battery-powered vehicles for underground mining and transport.
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: Mining companies in Nunavut, Canada defend environmental management despite stiff criticism, CBC News
Finland: The Arctic Railway – Building a future or destroying a culture?, Eye on the Arctic
Greenland: Political upheaval in Greenland — What does Inuit Ataqatigiit do now?, Eye on the Arctic
Russia: Can the environment withstand Arctic Russia’s coal mining boom?, The Independent Barents Observer
Sweden: Reducing emissions could create up to 3,000 new jobs in Arctic Sweden says mining group, Radio Sweden
United States: Conservation groups sue government over Alaska mining road, The Associated Press
