Sweden announces discovery of Europe’s biggest deposit of rare earth metals

(EurActiv, 12 Jan 2023) Swedish state-owned mining company LKAB on Thursday (12 January) said it had identified more than 1 million tonnes of rare earth oxides in the Kiruna area in the far north of the country, the largest known such deposit in Europe.

Rare earth minerals are essential to many high-tech manufacturing processes and are used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, portable electronics, microphones and speakers.

“This is good news, not only for LKAB, the region and the Swedish people, but also for Europe and the climate,” LKAB CEO Jan Moström said in a statement.

“It could become a significant building block for producing the critical raw materials that are absolutely crucial to enable the green transition,” he said.

The newly found deposit, named Per Gejer, is in close proximity with the LKAB iron mine in Kiruna, which is the biggest in the world.

LKAB has already started to prepare a drift, several kilometres long, at a depth of approximately 700 metres in the existing Kiruna mine towards the new deposit in order to be able to investigate it at depth and in detail.

External link

EurActiv, 12 Jan 2023: Sweden announces discovery of Europe’s biggest deposit of rare earth metals