Mining in Finland
Finland offers the mining industry a favourable investment and operating
environment with significant potential for new discoveries. Opportunities in many
commodity products are still very much under-explored. Current activity is
concentrated in gold, platinum group metals, base metals, diamonds and industrial
minerals. Finland has excellent infrastructure, progressive mining legislation,
comprehensive geological databases and readily-available exploration services. In
Paradigm Capital’s assessment of over 50 countries, Finland ranks as the most
attractive area to invest, just ahead of Sweden, Canada, Japan and Germany
based on a composite score sourced from the CIA World Factbook, Export
Development Canada, Transparency International, Oxford Analytica and
Bloomberg research.
The Finish Geological Survey (GTK) is a very highly regarded research and
development organization credited with the discovery of many economic deposits
of gold and base metals. Finland is a country with an extended history of political
and economic stability and a largely resource based economy. As a result, the
country has a favourable mining law with clear security of title. Finland also
provides capital grants for development projects of up to 25%, especially those in
the most northern regions of the country. Moreover, the company believes that
they could qualify for a tax rate of only 26% due to the current mining laws
applicable in Finland.
Currently, there are several producing mines in Finland. The largest mining
operation at present in the country is Inmet’s 100% owned Pyhäsalmi zinc-copper
mine. The Pyhäsalmi mine is expected to operate until 2016. The operation
includes a 1,450 metre deep, fully automated hoisting shaft and uses the latest
technology, processing at a rate of approximately 1.3 million tonnes per annum.
Other active metal producing companies in Finland are Outokumpu and Boliden,
which boast market capitalizations of US$3.1b and US$4.0b respectively.
Outokumpu is an international stainless steel and technology company.
Outokumpu operates a 1.65m tonne per annum stainless steel manufacturing plant
at Tornio in Finland. They also operate a chromite mine in Finland. Finland’s
largest mine is a phosphorus mine operated by Kemira Oy, a chemical company.
Boliden owns several processing facilities in Finland. At Harjavalta, they own a
copper smelter and a nickel smelter. They currently lease their nickel smelter to
the OM Group. The OM Group owns a nickel refinery at Harjavalta as well as a
large cobalt nickel chemicals plant at Kokkola. Boliden also owns a copper refinery
at Pori and a zinc smelter at Kokkola, Figure 7. The fact that the Keivitsa deposit is
located close to infrastructure and within the same country as Boliden and
Outokumpu’s operations suggests that concentrates produced from the deposit
could all be sold within the country. However, it’s no problem to ship all year round
out of Kemi port to overseas markets if need be.