Kiruna Iron Ore Mine, Sweden

With an ore body 4km long, 80m thick reaching a depth of 2km, LKAB’s Kiruna is the world’s largest, most modern underground iron ore mine. Since mining began here over 100 years ago, LKAB has produced over 950Mt of ore, yet only one-third of the original ore body has been extracted. Since mid-1999, Kiruna’s haulage level at a depth of 775m has been replaced by the next level down at 1,045m, which will support production until 2018. The operation employs 1,800 people, of whom 400 work in the mine.

In 2004, Kurina produced 14.5Mt of iron ore products out of LKAB’s total of 22.3Mt, maintaining the general relationship that it produces around two-thirds of the company’s total Swedish production. 11.5Mt of Kiruna’s output was sold as pellets. In 2004, LKAB achieved sales of iron ore products totaling 22.8Mt, of which 17/2 Mt were exported and 5.6Mt were delivered to customers in Sweden.