Australia-based miner Northern Iron has announced that so far in the August-September period of the current year the iron ore concentrate production capacity of its Kirkenes facility has increased to 2.7 million mt of iron ore per year. Work on the expansion project which will increase the plant’s production capacity to 2.8 million mt per year will be completed at the end of September.
According to Northern Iron’s statement, due to unplanned maintenance outages, the plant has only achieved a production capacity of 2.2 million mt per year in the first half of September. According to company’s statement, the maintenance work will improve the production performance; however, the company has already lowered its dry iron ore concentrate production estimates for 2012 from 2.2 million mt to 2.1 million mt.