In connection with the major meeting with the European Commission in January, LKAB announced that it has found Europe's largest deposit of rare earth elements.
They will be extracted as residual products in the iron ore mining of the orebody named after geologist Per Geijer.
Long and arduous road
But the road to the mine is long and arduous – both in terms of the permit process and the mapping itself.
The ore that can be said to represent LKAB's future in Kiruna is located a few kilometers northeast of the existing mine in the mountain Kiirunavaara. It is also located deep in the mountain and starts at a depth of about 500 meters.
This entails the challenges and costs of mapping it. But after drilling 70 kilometers of drilling from the surface, LKAB was ready to classify the ore, both in terms of size and content of iron, phosphorus and rare earth elements.
Convinced that the deposit is growing
It is about 585 million tons with an average iron content of 50.5 percent.
"I am convinced that the deposit will grow as we continue to investigate it," says Laura Lauri, Section Manager at LKAB's field exploration.
"Should be around for another hundred years"
Drilling rig driver Lennie Permerup pushes himself forward at a pace of four metres a day. He will be at Per Geijer in eight years' time and is used to long time horizons.
"LKAB has been around for a hundred years and will be around for another hundred years," he says.
In the clip, we go underground and see how the propulsion of the resort takes place.