Sweden discovers huge deposits of rare metals, a potential step towards ending Europe’s dependence on China
The beginning of the end of Europe dependent on China for precious rare earth metals may lie buried deep beneath the barren stretches of northern Sweden, far above the Arctic Circle.
Sweden’s iron ore miner LKAB said on Thursday it has identified “significant deposits” in Lapland of rare earth metals needed to make smartphones, electric vehicles and wind turbines.
The state-owned company that mines iron ore in Kiruna, nearly 1,000 kilometers north of Stockholm, said there are more than 1 million tonnes of rare earth oxides.
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According to LKAB, it is the largest known deposit of its kind in Europe. But the company warned that it could take at least a decade before mining starts.
Swedish Industry Minister Ebba Busch called Sweden “a gold mine” after the discovery. Her announcement came as the EU’s executive body, the European Commission, finalizes a proposal for its Critical Commodities Act that should help develop reliable and solid supply chains.
Rare earths are now reaching into the lives of almost everyone on the planet, appearing in everything from hard drives to elevators and trains. They are particularly important for the rapidly growing field of green energy, feeding wind turbines and electric car motors.
A deposit estimated to hold over one million tonnes of rare earths was discovered near Kiruna, Sweden. Reindeer herder Niila Inga walks across the snow as the sun sets near Kiruna, Sweden, on November 27, 2019.
(AP Photo/Malin Moberg)
But the EU is far behind the competition in the market, getting about 98% of its competitors rare earth metals from China, with none mined in Europe.
And according to the European Commission, demand will increase fivefold by 2030 due to the digital and green transformation of the bloc’s economy.
Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton has warned that the EU’s ambition to become the first climate-neutral continent is at risk without secure and sustainable access to raw materials.
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“Our dual green and digital transition will live or die by the performance of our supply chains,” he said. “Take China, with its quasi-monopoly on rare earths and permanent magnets and prices have risen 50-90% in the last year alone. Commodity availability has become a real geopolitical tool.”
The EU is also eager to learn from the past and reduce unilateral dependencies like the one it developed on Russia for oil and gas, and only started cutting ties recently after the war in Ukraine started with Moscow’s full-scale invasion on February 24. .
“This has to change,” Busch said as EU commissioners traveled to Kiruna to mark Sweden’s beginnings six-month rotating EU presidency. “In the short term we need to diversify our trade, but in the long term we cannot rely solely on trade agreements. Electrification, EU self-sufficiency and independence from Russia and China will start in the mine.”
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LKAB – which also develops coal-free iron ore projects – said the rare earth deposits were found near the world’s largest underground iron ore mine it operates in Kiruna. Exploration will not start for several years even if permits are delivered very quickly.
“If we look at how other permit processes have worked in our industry, it will take at least 10-15 years before we can actually start mining and deliver raw materials to the market,” says LKAB CEO Jan Moström. “We need to change the permitting processes to ensure increased mining of this type of raw material in Europe.”