| Location | |
|---|---|
  Kallak Iron Deposit | |
| Location | Kvikkjokk |
| Municipality | Lapland |
| Country | Sweden |
| Coordinates | 66°47′N19°7′E / 66.783°N 19.117°E |
| Production | |
| Products | Iron ore |
| Owner | |
| Company | Beowulf Mining |
The proposed Kallak mine is a, highly controversial, plan to exploit one of the largest unexploited iron ore deposits in Sweden.
The mining of iron ore in Sweden is a huge industry and is centred mainly in northern Sweden. The country holds 60% of Europe's identified iron ore deposits and is as of 2021 [update] responsible for 90% of Europe's iron ore extraction [1] and 5% of the world's reserves in 2014. [2] [3] [4]
More than 96% of total ore production comes from the mines in the northern region, known as Norrland. Comprising 10 of the 12 active mines in the country, these mines lie in Sápmi (historically "Lapland"), the traditional territory of the Sámi, the only Indigenous people in Scandinavia. [1]
The proposed site of a new mine known as Kallak (the Swedish form of Gállok, the original name of the place in the Lule Saami language) is located on an island in the hydropower-regulated Little Lule River between the (non-Sami) villages of Björkholmen and Randijaur in the municipality of Jokkmokk in the province of Norrbotten in northern Sweden. It is located near the hydropower plant Parki, and the regulation reservoirs Parkijaure and Randijaure. Björkholmen and Randijaur have around 100 inhabitants, constituting the permanent residents of Gállok/Kallak. [1]
The site is on the ancestral lands of the indigenous Sami people and forms part of the reindeer winter grazing lands of the Sami community of Jåhkågasska tjiellde. The community consists of approximately one hundred members, of which around half work directly with reindeer herding. While this is the community primarily affected by the mining proposal, two other neighbouring Sámi communities would also be indirectly affected. [1]
The Kallak north and Kallak south prospects were identified by the Geological Survey of Sweden in the 1940s. In the late 1960s the SGU identified Kallak north as containing 92 million tonnes of ore and Kallak south as containing 29 million tonnes of ore at a grade of roughly 35%.
Beowulf Mining acquired the Kallak north licence in 2006, and a drill program conducted in 2010 has found at least 175 Mt of Iron at an average grade of 30%. [5] Beowulf acquired the Kallak south licence from Tasman Metals in mid-2010. [6] An ongoing drill program has shown Kallak south to contain at least 400 million tonnes of Iron at an average grade of 30%. [7]
The combined Kallak deposit contains at least 600 million tonnes of Iron and it is believed that the north and south deposits are connected at depth to give a single iron deposit with a strike length of over 4 km (2.5 mi).[ citation needed ]
In mid-2010 an independent conceptual study performed by the Raw Materials Group showed that the Kallak north deposit, which at the time was thought to contain 150 million tonnes of iron at 30% grading, was commercially viable. [8]
The plans to establish a mine at the site have met resistance from the indigenous Sámi people as well as other local inhabitants and have also raised concerns in regard to dam safety, within the hydro power regulated Lule River. [9] On 1 July 2013, protesters set up a road blockade in order to prevent test drilling. On 30 July, the blockade was dismantled by the police, but on the next day the blockade was set up again. [10]
Dam safety research points at the problems of combining hydro power with tailing dams, within the same system. In Sweden this would be the first time such a combination is made, and thereby this would be a full-scale experiment with major risks for people and drinking water provision downstream, amongst other the cities of Boden and Luleå. [11]
In 2014, Norrbotten County said no to further mining in Kallak; [12] the case would be closed if the Swedish governmental geology decision-making body Bergsstaten had agreed with Norrbotten County. However, Bergsstaten overruled the county and it was up to the government of Sweden to give a final answer to the question. [13] [14]
In summer 2019 over 1000 people got together in a Rainbow Gathering tent camp in Kallak in solidarity with the Sámi people. [15]
In February 2020, the Swedish Government finally refused their application. However Beowulf has continued to express an interest in mining at Kallak. [16] In December 2021, the new Prime Minister of Sweden, Magdalena Andersson, said that Sweden needed more mines, and shares rose in Beowulf after this announcement. [17] With Swedish Green Party, which opposed the project, no longer in the governing coalition, the issue of allowance for the mining project reopened. [18] In February 2022 advisors of the U.N. Human Rights Council [19] and local Saami population protested against it together with Greta Thunberg. [20] On February 2, 2022, the Sámi Parliament of Sweden submitted its opinion concerning a new mine in Kallak to the Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation (Sweden). [21]
Despite the protests, on March 22, 2022, the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications, under a set of environmental protection-related conditions, gave a permission to Beowulf to proceed with the mining project. [22] Before the mine is established, the project needs to be approved by the Swedish environmental court. [23]
The Sámi are the traditionally Sámi-speaking Indigenous peoples inhabiting the region of Sápmi, which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Kola Peninsula in Russia. The region of Sápmi was formerly known as Lapland, and the Sámi have historically been known in English as Lapps or Laplanders, but these terms are regarded as offensive by the Sámi, who prefer the area's name in their own languages, e.g. Northern Sámi Sápmi. Their traditional languages are the Sámi languages, which are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family.
Sápmi is the cultural region traditionally inhabited by the Sámi people. Sápmi is in Northern Europe and includes the northern parts of Fennoscandia, also known as the "Cap of the North".
Norrbotten County is the northernmost county or län of Sweden. It is also the largest county by land area, almost a quarter of Sweden's total area. It shares borders with Västerbotten County to the southwest, the Gulf of Bothnia to the southeast, the counties of Nordland and Troms in Norway to the northwest, and Lapland Province in Finland to the northeast.
Jokkmokk Municipality is a municipality in Norrbotten County in northern Sweden. Its seat is located in Jokkmokk.
Jokkmokk is a locality and the seat of Jokkmokk Municipality in Norrbotten County, province of Lapland, Sweden, with 2,786 inhabitants in 2010. The Lule Sami name of the place means "River's Curve," due to the meandering river that runs through it. As in other towns in Lapland, the Swedish language is dominant at an official level in Jokkmokk in modern times. The settlement is just north of the Arctic Circle. Talvatissjön is located at the southern part of Jokkmokk.
The Saami Council is a voluntary, non-governmental organization of the Sámi people made up of nine Sámi member organizations from Finland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden. Since the founding of the Nordic Saami Council in 1956, among the first indigenous peoples' organizations, the Saami Council has actively dealt with Sámi public policy tasks. In 1992, when Russian Sámi groups joined the council, "Nordic" was removed from the council's name. The secretary was previously sited in both Helsinki and Utsjoki, Finland, but is now in Kárášjohka, Norway. The Saami Council is funded by a range of grants, and its engagements are based on decisions, statements, declarations, and political programs from the Saami Conference held every four years.
Ferrexpo plc is a Swiss-based commodity trading and mining company which is the third largest exporter of iron ore pellets in the world. Ferrexpo's operating base is in central Ukraine, where it operates three iron-ore mines and an iron ore pellet production facility. The company's trading office is located in London where it is listed on the London Stock Exchange and it is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index and FTSE4Good Index.
Kiirunavaara is a mountain situated in Kiruna Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden. It contains one of the largest and richest bodies of iron ore in the world.
Sámi languages, in English also rendered as Sami and Saami, are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Indigenous Sámi people in Northern Europe. There are, depending on the nature and terms of division, ten or more Sami languages. Several spellings have been used for the Sámi languages, including Sámi, Sami, Saami, Saame, Sámic, Samic and Saamic, as well as the exonyms Lappish and Lappic. The last two, along with the term Lapp, are now often considered pejorative.
The Kiruna mine is the largest and most modern underground iron ore mine in the world. The mine is located in Kiruna in Norrbotten County, Lapland, Sweden. The mine is owned by Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB (LKAB), a large Swedish mining company. In 2018 the mine produced 26.9 million tonnes of iron ore. The Kiruna mine has an ore body which is 4 km (2.5 mi) long, 80 metres (260 ft) to 120 metres (390 ft) thick and reaching a depth of up to 2 km (1.2 mi). Since mining began at the site in 1898, the mine has produced over 950 million tonnes of ore. As of 2020, the main haulage level is 1,365 m below the ore outcrop at Kiirunavaara that existed prior to mining.
The Ruoutevare Iron Deposit is one of the largest known unexploited iron ore deposits in Sweden. Located in Kvikkjokk in Norrbotten County, Lapland, the deposit was discovered in the early 1970s by the Geological Survey of Sweden and found to have between 116 and 123 million tonnes of iron ore. In 2008 Beowulf Mining announced a maiden JORC compliant resource estimate for Ruoutevare with an inferred mineral resource estimate of 140 million tonnes of iron ore at a grade of 39.1%, with 5.7% titanium and 0.2% Vanadium.
Iron ore mining in Western Australia, in the 2018–19 financial year, accounted for 54 percent of the total value of the state's resource production, with a value of A$78.2 billion. The overall value of the minerals and petroleum industry in Western Australia was A$145 billion in 2018–19, a 26 percent increase on the previous financial year.
The Ballek Copper/Gold deposit contains 43,000 tonnes of Copper and 52,000 ounces of gold and is owned by Wayland Copper Limited, a joint venture between Energy Ventures Limited (EVE) and Beowulf Mining. The equity in Wayland is split evenly between the two partners, with Beowulf acting as operator. Currently five licences make up the Ballek project, which covers an area of roughly 110 km2 in Norrbotten County, Sweden.
The Kaunisvaara mine is a large iron mine located in northern Sweden in the village of Kaunisvaara in Norrbotten County. Kaunisvaara represents one of the largest iron ore reserves in Sweden and in the world having estimated reserves of 872 million tonnes of ore grading 32.7% iron metal.
Repparfjorden is a fjord in the municipality of Hammerfest in Finnmark county, Norway. It has a length of about 14 kilometres (8.7 mi), and cuts into Porsangerhalvøya from the west, southeast of Kvaløya.
Beowulf Mining plc is a UK registered Nordic focused exploration and development company listed on the AIM in London and Spotlight in Sweden. The CEO is Kurt Budge. The company was formed in 1988 as Beowulf Gold. Through subsidiaries Jokkmokk Iron Mines AB and Fennoscandian Resources, it is active in developing open-pit mining in Sweden and Finland respectively; its plans to mine for magnetite iron ore at Kallak, west of Jokkmokk in northern Sweden, and for graphite in Heinävesi, Finland, are controversial.
The mining industry in Sweden has a history dating back 6,000 years.
Gollegiella is a pan-Nordic Sámi language award founded in 2004 by the ministers for Sámi affairs and the presidents of the Sámi Parliaments in Norway, Sweden, and Finland with the aim of promoting, developing and preserving the Sámi languages. The biennial award comes with a monetary prize that is currently 15,000 euros.
José Francisco Calí Tzay is a Guatemalan attorney and diplomat, and the UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples since 2020.
Tasman Metals, "a Canadian company for jurisdictional and thereby regulatory purposes," is a Vancouver-based mining company that operated in Sweden. From 2009 to 2016 Tasman Metals owned the mining rights to, and explored for, rare earth elements in the Norra Kärr area in the South Swedish highlands. In February 2016 the supreme administrative court of Sweden withdrew Tasman's exploitation concession for Norra Kärr.
Text has been copied from this source, which is available under a Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Archived 16 October 2020 at the Wayback Machine licence.Mineral resources in Sweden | ||
|---|---|---|
| Iron |  | |
| Copper | ||
| Molybdenum | ||
| Zinc | ||