IM attended the official opening today of the Kylylahti copper-gold-zinc mine and the Luikonlahti regional processing hub, both outside Outokumpu in Finland. These are the first stages in the Outokumpu Project, which is 100% owned by Altona Mining and are situated within Finland’s premier mining district that gave rise to the major steel and process technology companies, Outokumpu Oy and Outotec Oy. The area has 100 years of mining history with three past major base metal mines in the area producing from 1914 to 1989.

Outokumpu lies some 400 km northeast of Helsinki. Finland is a well performing euro zone economy and is one of the world premier mining investment destinations ranking ahead of most Australian and Canadian provinces in recent surveys.

The project has declared resources of 15.9 Mt of copper dominant polymetallic base metal mineralisation (copper, gold, nickel, zinc, cobalt) (including Kylylahti, Saramäki, Vuonos, Hautalampi and Riihilampi deposits) containing some 156,200 t of copper and 32,300 t of nickel.

First concentrate from Kylylahti/Luikonlahti shipped in February. The opening today was attended by almost 200 people, who represented stakeholders, local communities, government and many doyens of Finnish mining.

The initial development is the new underground mine at the 8.4 Mt Kylylahti copper-gold-zinc deposit with trucking of ore 43 km to the Luikonlahti regional processing hub 100% owned by Altona. The established Luikonlahti processing plant treated Outokumpu type base metal ores for over 15 years and it has now been refurbished and modernised. Future work will be directed at maximising value from the cobalt/nickel concentrate that is currently being stored.

A detailed article on Altona Mining’s Outokumpu Project will be published in IM’s September issue.