Operations in Boliden’s Kevitsa mine, in Finnish Lappland, were halted after a fire engulfed its primary crushing station on Thursday night.
Boliden indicated in a statement that the incident did not result in any injuries or deaths and the blaze was extinguished by Friday morning. However, it is now assessing the widespread damage to the crushing station and is focusing on weighing essential steps required to resume operations as soon as possible.
Moreover, production at its concentrating plant has ceased until further notice because of the fire, though mining output will not be affected.
The miner recently invested in expansion at Kevitsa to enable the company to increase its ore production capacity to 9.5mn mt per year.
The company produces copper along with nickel and gold at its Kevitsa mine. In 2019 the mine milled around 27,500mt of copper concentrate. It mined a total of 121,000mt of copper through its Aitik, Kevitsa, Kylylahti, and Kristineberg mines in 2019.
Boliden is a global metals company headquartered in Sweden that operates mines and smelters in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Ireland. The miner concentrates on copper, zinc and lead production and employs close to 6,000 workers.