Other literature

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Overview of Mineral Resources in Norway

A summary of the mineral resources of Norway is periodically updated by the Norwegian Geological Survey (NGU). A version from 2016 can be found here.

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Swedish mining information resources

The Swedish Svemin organisation has a webpage with a collection of information about the mining industry in Sweden. Some of these resources are also available in English, here. The material includes:

• Strategic ‘Road Map’ document outlining plans for the long term competitiveness and a fossil-free mining and minerals industry.
• Guidelines for mineral exploration in Sweden, and the regulations that apply.
• Presentations from workshops (such as Tailing dams, 2013)
• Guidelines for fire safety in mines
• Guidelines for vehicles, machinery and technical equipment
• Annual statistics for occupational health
• Competence development – resources about mining for general public and school children.
• Environmental guidelines.

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CAMM² Strategic Research Centre at Luleå Technical University

CAMM (Center for Advanced Mining and Metallurgy) was created in 2010 as the strategic research area of Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and was established at the Luleå University of Technology (LTU). LTU is recognized as Sweden’s leading university for applied research and education in mining and metallurgy and performs research in close cooperation with industry. CAMM has five core research areas along the mining value chain – exploration, mining, mineral processing, metallurgy and the environment. LTU is running CAMM in collaboration with Swerea Mefos in the research area of Metallurgy.

The CAMM centre is one of 23 strategic research areas (SFO/ Strategiskt forskningsområde) established during 2008/2009 by the Swedish government. The aim of these centres is the development of internationally prominent research environments to solve key social issues in a long-term perspective. The CAMM centre performs fundamental research to support the sustainability of the mining industry. The aim of CAMM is the utilization of the technological leadership for resource-efficient production of raw materials and innovative products with high added value in order to enhance quality of life by creating prosperity in harmony with nature and society.

CAMM ran for the period 2010-2014. Following the evaluation of CAMM, a second phase of CAMM called CAMM² (Center for Advanced Mining and Metallurgy – second program period) started in 2016 and will operate until 2020. Based on the evaluation of CAMM the objective of CAMM² is to maintain and further develop internationally excellent research groups and training in mining and metallurgy. Therefore, the focus within CAMM² is to increase international collaboration and to diversify and deepen this collaboration while increasing the number of publications in relevant scientific journals.

The research within CAMM² is organised in five work packages corresponding to the topics of Exploration; Mining and Rock Engineering, Mineral Processing, Process Metallurgy and the Environment. In addition to the funding of the five-core research groups, two to three risk projects are funded annually to support new innovative research ideas from adjoining research topics at LTU. Additional research related to the five core research areas within the value chain for mining is also performed at LTU, such as Attractive Workplace, Raw Materials Economics and Economics among others.

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Mineral strategy for Northern Norway

The three northern-most provinces in Norway recently published a strategic plan for the mineral industry in the region. The goal for the plan is to establish a framework for the mineral industry which stimulates and lays the foundation for a value-adding and profitable industry, where the companies deliver at the highest level of social and environmental sustainability. The vision for the mineral strategy is to develop a sustainable mineral industry in Northern Norway to contribute to the implementation of the ‘green shift’.

A copy of the strategy document can be downloaded here (in Norwegian).

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Increasing Recovery in Norwegian mines

A research project led by NTNU with participation from three Norwegian mining companies has investigated how the recovery rate of product can be increased in mining operations. Details about the project can be found here. The project webpage can be found here.

The project aims to combine geological and metallurgical information along the whole mining value chain and creating spatially-based (3D and 4D) predictive models for mineral processing plants to be used in production management. The mining companies involved are Sibelco Nordic, Verdalskalk and Norsk Mineral. The project is organised into work packages on WP1: Geometallurgical flow sheets; WP2: Effective sampling and mineral characterisation; WP3 Modelling.

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New Knowledge on Sea Disposal of mine tailings

A research project led by SINTEF is studying the disposal of mining tailings in the sea (submarine tailing placement, STP). The close proximity of many mines in Norway to deep sea fjords has resulted in this being widely adopted as an alternative to landfilling the mine waste. The project partners are SINTEF Industry, SINTEF Ocean, NTNU, NIWA, UiT and NGU. The mining companies involved are Sydvaranger; Nussir; Sibelco Nordic; Rana Gruber; Omya Hustadmarmor; Nordic Mining and Titania.

The project is organised into the following work packages:

• WP1: Project Management
• WP2: Tailings Improvement and Characteristics
• WP3: Study of three comparable fjords
• WP4: Effects from mine tailings and associated chemicals on ecosystems
• WP5: Modelling, impact acceptance criteria and risk aspects
• WP6: Best Available Techniques

The project ran for 5 years and held the closing seminar on the 14th May 2019. More details about the project can be found here.

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SUMILCERE: Sustainable Mining, local communities and Environmental regulation in Kolarctic area.

A Kolarctic CBC project investigating the “Social Licence to Operate” for the mining industry was performed between 2010 and 2014. This involved a multidisciplinary and transnational research network from four countries and studied good practices and developed recommendations for a sustainable mining industry in the Barents region.

The project produced six articles and two toolkits for use by industrial actors and decision-making authorities. The project consisted of three thematic research sub-projects:

• The current practices of participation and relationships between mining projects and local communities in developing suggestions for social licensing.
• The legal framework in improving policy instruments and regulation;
• The relation between international law and the right of the Sami people in mining projects to offer suggestions to optimise the realisation of their values and interests.

Specific case studies examined in the project included:

• Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd gold mine, Kittilä, Finland
• Northland Resources Hanukainen iron mining project, Kolari, Finland
• Gruvberget in Svappavaara community at Kiruna-Malmberget, Sweden
• Northland Resources Tapuli iron mine in Pajala, Sweden
• Beowulf mining Kallak iron mine in Jokkmokk, Sweden
• Sydvaranger Gruve ASA iron min in Sør-Varanger, Norway
• Nussir ASA copper mining project in Repparfjord, Kvalsund, Norway
• Lovozerskij GOK rare earth metals mine in Revda, Russia
• AO Apatit and SZFK apatite mine in Apatity & Kirovsk, Russia.

‘Further details of the project organisation can be found here, and an article describing the project results can be downloaded here.

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Swedish Mining Innovation Programme

In Sweden a strategic innovation programme for the mining and metal producing industry has been established with financing from Vinnova, Formas and the Swedish Energy Agency. The programme is part of a joint investment in strategic innovation areas (SIP) and has got the name “SIP STRIM” (Strategic innovation programme for the Swedish mining and metal producing industry). Details of the funding programme can be found on the webpage.

There have been a wide variety of innovation projects financed by the SIP STRIM programme, a list of these can be found here.

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Swedish project MinBaS: Mineral-Ballast-Stone

In Sweden a project on mine operation was run in two periods: MinBaS I from 2003-2005 and MinBaS II from 2007 – 2010. Details of the results from these projects can be found here. Although the focus was more upsteam than the scope of the SEESIMA project there are some relevant aspects amongst the reports produced.

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FAME – A European Horizon 2020 project

A European H2020 project called FAME was performed between January 2015 and December 2018, with the aim to increase the competitiveness of European mining enterprises and support the extraction of European mineral resources. The project webpage (www.fame-project.eu) is no longer active, but some details can be found at the webpage of the French geological survey (BRGM), here.

The project had a budget of 7,65 M€ and 17 partners, with the lead partner Wardell Armstrong from the UK. Other partners included:

In particular the project aimed to address the technical, economic and environmental issues arising from the extraction of minerals from deposits of greisen, pegmatite and skarn type that contain critical metals such as tungsten, niobium and indium, as well as lithium, tin and tantalum. These types of deposits are complex, often with low metal concentrations and pose challenges for extraction processes. The activities of the project are summarised in the figure below.

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TEKES Green Mining programme in Finland

Over the period 2011-2016 the Finnish government financed a large research programme, Tekes Green Mining. The goal was to strength the Finnish mineral cluster in terms of fostering eco-efficient mining technology as well as socially and environmentally accepted mining. The programme also aimed to facilitate exports of mining technologies and services and boost international collaboration.

Tekes is the Finnish funding agency for technology and innovation. The budget for the programme was 60 million euro, of which Tekes contributed 50%, companies 33% and public research institutes 17%. There were 176 organisations participating in the programme. The webpage describing the results of the programme can be found here. The project data is presented on the webside here, although not all of the projects have made their reports available. A lasting result of the programme was the establishment of a network/cluster of mining industry companies, which has a webside here.

A summary of activities that the Finnish Geological Survey performed in the Tekes Green Mining Programme can be found here. A database over all projects performed with Tekes funding (including programmes other than Green Mining) can be found here.