Agnico Eagle’s Kittilä gold mine in Finland is getting ready for a major underground expansion by investing more than $11 million into production and personnel hoists from ABB to support the operation of its new shaft.

ABB will deliver one friction type 2.5 MW production hoist as well as a 1.2 MW single drum personnel hoist to support operations at Europe’s biggest gold mine. The company will also provide online remote support services for real-time hoist condition monitoring via its ABB Ability™ platform.

The mine already uses a variety of ABB technology, including motors, an automation system, frequency converters and instruments, but accesses the underground orebody via decline.

The €160 million ($186 million) expansion at Kittilä will see a shaft over 1 km deep built at the mine, from which ore will be lifted with ABB’s hoisting equipment. This will make it possible to use the deeper parts of the gold deposit in an economically viable way, while improving energy efficiency and cutting fossil fuel use as the shaft replaces the truck and off-road vehicle transport of ore and personnel, ABB said.

The processing capacity of the mine’s concentrating plant will increase from the current 1.6 Mt/y to 2.0 Mt/y, with gold production expected to expand by 50,000-70,000 oz/y to 250,000-260,000 oz/y, starting in 2021.

ABB, which has delivered over 700 mine hoisting systems over the world, said the Kittilä personnel and production hoists will be installed and introduced during 2020–2021.