Sweden-based mining company Northland Resources SA has announced that the Finnish-Swedish Border River Commission on August 20 approved the environmental permit for the Tapuli iron ore mine and the Kaunisvaara mill.
"The permit allows for the mining of more than 100 million mt of magnetite iron ore from the Tapuli mine and for the processing of that ore into a high quality concentrate in the Kaunisvaara mill. This is a critical cornerstone in the development of the Kaunisvaara iron concentrate project," stated Karl-Axel Waplan, CEO of Northland Resources SA, according to a company statement.
The permit for the Kaunisvaara mill gives Northland approval to process 20 million mt of ore and to produce 5 million mt of concentrate per year. This means that there is sufficient capacity to process ore from the Tapuli mine as well as from other deposits that are in the advanced planning and development stage in the Kaunisvaara area. The comprehensive permit approves other requests related to storage of waste and management of process water.