LKAB pauses its “green transition”

Published 23 October 2024 at 11.39

Economy. The state mining company LKAB announces that the transition to fossil-free sponge iron in Kiruna will be delayed. This means that the future need for electricity production in northern Sweden will be significantly less than previously estimated.

Share the article

TwittraShare

The changeover, which was first presented in 2020, would have required around 50 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity by 2040 and up to 70 TWh by 2050 – corresponding to roughly half of Sweden's current electricity consumption.

Now LKAB's CEO Jan Moström states that the company is “rebalancing” its long-term strategy, partly due to changing mineral resources and limitations in the infrastructure.

– The long-term strategy is fixed, but we are rebalancing. Above all, it is because we have completely different mineral resources than five years ago. The second reason is limitations in infrastructure, says Moström to Dagens Industri.

The plans to open new mines risk incurring large costs, which contributed to the decision to pause the convergence with the conversion to fossil-free sponge iron.