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Sweden
Boliden Area Operation

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 Location:
30 km NW from Skellefteå, Sweden

  Address:
Finnforsvägen 4
Boliden
Sweden
SWE-936 32
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Overview

StageProduction
Mine TypeUnderground
Commodities
  • Zinc
  • Copper
  • Lead
  • Gold
  • Silver
  • Tellurium
Mining Method
  • Longitudinal open stoping
  • Drift & Fill
  • Cut & Fill
  • Open stoping
  • Bench stoping
  • Room-and-pillar
  • Cemented backfill
  • Backfill
Processing
  • Filter press plant
  • Smelting
  • Dewatering
  • Flotation
  • Agitated tank (VAT) leaching
  • Carbon in leach (CIL)
  • Solvent Extraction & Electrowinning
  • Cyanide (reagent)
Mine Life2027
Boliden Area Operation consist of Renström, Kristineberg and Kankberg underground mines.


Owners

Source: p. 75
CompanyInterestOwnership
Boliden AB 100 % Indirect

Deposit Type

  • Porphyry
  • Vein / narrow vein
  • Breccia pipe / Stockwork
  • VMS


Summary:

Kankberg Geology
The Kankberg Mine lies within the eastern part of the Skellefte mining field, one of the most important mining regions in Sweden, where Boliden has been active since the 1920s. It’s significance in relation to 52 other known deposits in the field is shown in Figure 11 from a paper by Allen et al (1996) that describes the marine volcanic arc setting of these Zn-Cu-AuAg polymetallic massive sulfide deposits, vein Au deposits and porphyry Cu-Au-Mo deposits.

The host rock in the Kankberg area is dominated by volcanic rocks of primarily dacitic and rhyolitic compositions forming quartz-feldspar porphyritic, rhyolitic and dacitic rock types. The felsic magmas forming these volcanics intruded as shallow (subvolcanic) dykes and sills and extruded as lavas at the surface where they mixed with sediments and mass flows derived from volcanic slopes. The volcanism initiated a convection of solutions through the rocks. These solutions dissolved and transported minerals and metals to sites of deposition.

After the major volcanic period had ended the area was subsequently deformed and folded. This resulted in a dominantly vertical trend of the rocks and structures. At a later stage, brittle deformation took place. Fractures and fissures were intruded by mafic magma forming basaltic and andesitic dykes, which are common in the Kankberg area.

The Kankberg gold deposit is hosted in a complex mix of volcanic rocks consisting primarily of quartz-feldspar porphyry, volcaniclastics and breccias. The host rocks are strongly altered by silicification, andalusite ± topaz alteration and to a varying degree sericitization. The strong alteration form a highly competent body, which is surrounded by dacites. The contact zone is characterized by sericite ± chlorite alteration associated with pyrite ± pyrrhotite.

Mineralogy
The economic mineralization is contained in ‘metallic’ minerals primarily located within the quartz-andalusite ± topaz alteration. It includes fine-grained native gold alloyed with silver at proportions of between 0 to 20%. More commonly, gold occurs as gold-tellurides including petzite (Ag3AuTe2), calaverite (AuTe2) and sylvanite (AuAgTe4). Another common telluride is tellurobismuthite (Bi2Te3). Several more telluride minerals have been identified through microscopy.

Renstrom Geology
The rocks in the Skellefte district were formed approximately 1.9 Ga during a period of active volcanism. The felsic magmas intruded as shallow (subvolcanic) intrusions (dykes and sills) at and close to the surface, where they mixed and mingled with wet sediments and mass-flows derived from volcanic slopes resulting in hyaloclastic brecciation and peperites. The active volcanic region also initiated a convection of solutions within the deposited package which enabled the dissolution and transportation of metals and minerals. These solutions also altered the rocks both physically, through (hydro-) brecciation and fragmentation, and chemically resulting in the heavily altered rocks present today. After the main volcanic period, regional deformation took place within the Skellefte district. The brittle deformation accommodated for fractures and fissures, which would be filled by mafic magmas forming andesitic and basaltic dykes.

The Renström area is located 15km west of Boliden, in the eastern part of the Skellefteå district. The Renström area has a volcanically complex and multiply deformed rock sequence. Rock types include a large range of basaltic andesite to rhyolite volcanic facies. Juvenile basaltic andesite, dacite and rhyolite volcanoclastic facies are particularly abundant and these have been intruded by numerous basaltic, andesitic dacitic and rhylitic sills and doms. The area has two main generations of folding with a complex interference pattern, and several generations of faults and intrusions.

The Renström area is one of the most intensely mineralized parts of the Skellefte district and the Renström deposit is one of the most important deposits due to its size (>10 million tonnes), grade (high Zn, Au, Ag values) and metallurgical characteristics (medium grained; low arsenic and antimony contents). The ores in the Renström deposit are associated with strong chlorite, dolomite, sericite and silica alteration.

Mineralization
The Renström mineralization consists of several smaller lenses, which are all characterized by massive to semimassive pyrite-sphalerite dominated ores with subordinate massive to semimassive pyrite-chalocopyrite ore and local stringer-type pyrite-chalocopyrite±pyrrhotite mineralization. The main ore minerals are pyrite, sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite, pyrrotite and arsenopyrite with minor tetrahedrite-tennantite, other sulphosalts, electrum and amalgam (Helfrich, 1971; Kläre, 2001). Ores in the Renström area have higher zinc, gold, silver and lead contents and lower sulphur and arsenic content than most volcanic-hosted massive sulfide ores in the Skellefte district.

Kristineberg Geology
The Kristineberg Camp is located on the western extent of the Skellefteå district. The Skellefte district is a Paleoproterozoic (1.89 Ga) Volcanic sedimentary area Located in Västerbotten, northern Sweden. The area stretches roughly 100 km from the village of Kristineberg in the west to the village of Boliden in the east. The Skellefte district hosts more than 85 VHMS deposits, of which 26 have been, or are currently hosting mining operations. The VHMS deposits of the area are mostly hosted in the upper parts of a volcanic sequence of intermediate to felsic juvenile volcanoclastic rocks, sub volcanic intrusions and lavas. These rocks together form the Skellefte group, which in turn is the lowest stratigraphic sequence in the Skellefte district. (Allen, Weihed, & Svenson, 1996).

Mineralisations
Mineralisations of the Kristineberg Mine are hosted in steeply-gently dipping Chlorite Schist lenses, with a gentle plunge towards the SW. The mineralisation generally appears as two “arms”, the southern arm consisting of the B-, E-, J-, K-, M-,and Ag-Zones as well as the Raimo and Tommy mineralisations. On the northern “arm” lies the L-Zone and A-Zones. Mineralisations can be generally split into two types:
• Chlorite Schist hosted mineralisations, and
• Ag-Pb “remobilised” mineralisation.

Chlorite schist hosted mineralisation generally contains sulphide mineralisation that is semimassive to massive in nature with variable abundances of economically important minerals: chalcopyrite (CuFeS2), sphalerite ((Zn, Fe)S) and galena (PbS), with minor silver and gold. The schists themselves contain variable amounts of muscovite, quartz, chlorite, phlogopite, biotite, cordierite, andalusite, pyrite and magnetite. The chlorite schists appear as lenses within colloquially named “quartzites” which are hypothesised to be highly altered rhyolitic to dacitic rocks (Barrett & MacLean, 2000). Chlorite, cordierite, sericite and andalusite as well as quartz overprint the original rock textures making primary rock identification difficult.

The “remobilised” Ag-Pb type is hosted within silicified cordierite and chlorite quartzites. Five silver bearing minerals are present within the Ag-Zone; freibergite ((Ag,Cu,Fe)12(Sb,As)4S13) being the dominant one with minor amounts of hessite (Ag2Te) often present. High silver grades are often present in narrow zones associated with galena veins or fracture fillings.


Mining Methods

  • Longitudinal open stoping
  • Drift & Fill
  • Cut & Fill
  • Open stoping
  • Bench stoping
  • Room-and-pillar
  • Cemented backfill
  • Backfill


Summary:

The mining method in the Kankberg Mine is a cut-and-fill process that can also be described as room-and-pillar with fill. The ore is mined in 6 m high horizontal rooms or stopes (7 m if it is a bottom room). The rooms are stacked vertically in 4 to 6, into levels, which are accessed from the ramp. The mining starts from a bottom undercut and advances upwards. The mining cycle is comprised of drilling of the ore, loading of blast holes, blasting, loading of the ore, cleaning of the exposed rock and reinforcing with cemented iron rods and shotcrete.

Once the stope is mined, media like water, power supply and ventilation are retreated, as the stope is backfilled with waste material. The fill material serves both as support for the stope walls and as working platform for the next stope. The width of stopes varies between 4.5m to 10m. Where the width of the stope exceeds 10 m, pillars of 6 x 6 m are left at 10 m intervals within the stope. On average 4 to 5 different stopes are in production at any given time with one primary backfill area.

4 mining methods are used in the Renström mine: Cut & fil, Open stoping, Retreat mining, Bench. Backfilling reuses barren rock from the developments and tailings from the mill.

At the Kristineberg Mine, cut and fill mining and drift and fill mining methods are utilised to mine the mineralised material underground. Generally, levels wider than 10m are mined with drift and fill mining. Both cut and fill and drift and fill are bottom-up mining methods, since the lowermost level is mined first, then backfilled either with Hydraulic Fill (HF) or with Cemented Hydraulic Fill (CHF) depending on the fill requirements. In all cases, waste rock from development headings is transported to the mined out level prior to HF/ CHF filling in order to achieve better stability in the levels above and to avoid transporting waste rock to the surface. In levels with widths between 6-10m, slashing is used to mine any remaining mineralised material on the walls of the mining room. In the uppermost slices, residual mining is also practiced in order to mine the sill pillars.

If the geological and rock mechanical conditions allow, then mineralised bodies are mined with the so-called “Rill” mining method. In Rill mining, a variation of longitudinal open stoping, the mined stope is continuously backfilled with un-cemented rock fill to stabilise the unsupported walls of the stope. The stope height is usually 10-12 m between the roof of the underdrift to the bottom of the drift above.


Crushing and Grinding
Flow Sheet: Source
Crusher / Mill TypeModelSizePowerQuantity
AG mill 1

Summary:

There are two stages of grinding. The primary mill is a fully autogenous mill and the secondary mill is a pebble mill fed with pebbles extracted from the primary mill. The ground ore is classified using screens and hydro-cyclones. A gravimetric concentrate containing coarse grained gold bearing minerals is produced in the grinding circuit. The gravimetric concentrate is packed in bags of about 800 kg and delivered to the Rönnskär smelter by truck.


Processing

  • Filter press plant
  • Smelting
  • Dewatering
  • Flotation
  • Agitated tank (VAT) leaching
  • Carbon in leach (CIL)
  • Solvent Extraction & Electrowinning
  • Cyanide (reagent)

Flow Sheet: Subscription required

Summary:

Ore is delivered by truck to the industrial area where each truck is weighed on a truck scale in order to determine the tonnage arriving to the industrial area. The ore arriving at the industrial area is either taken into the processing plant or stored in a stockpile. Separate stock piles are kept for each of the individual mines in the Boliden area. Ore from the different mines is processed in campaigns where fresh ore from the mine is combined with ore from stockpiles. The feed tonnage to the processing plant is determined using a weighing system with a stationary belt scale. Feed tonnage and weights from the trucks scale are used to determine current tonnage on the stockpiles.

In the processing plant the ore is ground in two stages. The primary mill is a fully autogenous mill and the secondary mill is a pebble mill fed with pebbles extracted from the primary mill. The ground ore is classified using screens and hydrocyclones. A gravimetric concentrate containing coarse gr ........

Recoveries & Grades:

CommodityParameter2020201920182017201620152014
Zinc Head Grade, %  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required3.543.994.163.823
Zinc Concentrate Grade, %  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required54.753.254.554.254.9
Copper Head Grade, %  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required0.360.380.40.410.6
Copper Concentrate Grade, %  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required23.925.324.825.724.5
Lead Head Grade, %  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required0.360.420.440.440.3
Lead Concentrate Grade, %  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required32.125.731.33432.9
Gold Head Grade, g/t  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required1.91.91.71.71.8
Silver Head Grade, g/t  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required52.157.759.259.642.6
Tellurium Head Grade, g/t  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required44.734.936.937.633.8

Production:

CommodityProductUnits2020201920182017201620152014
Zinc Metal in concentrate kt  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required5766705645
Zinc Concentrate kt  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required10312312910382
Copper Metal in concentrate kt  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required
Copper Concentrate kt  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required
Lead Metal in concentrate kt  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required
Lead Concentrate kt  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required
Gold Metal in concentrate oz  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required
Silver Metal in concentrate koz  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required
Tellurium Metal in concentrate kg  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

Operational Metrics:

Metrics202020192018201720162015
Tonnes milled  ......  Subscription required2,028 kt1,947 kt2,065 kt2,138 kt1,879 kt
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

Reserves at December 31, 2020:

CategoryOreTypeTonnage CommodityGrade
Proven Sulphide 410 kt Zinc 5.7 %
Proven Sulphide 410 kt Copper 0.5 %
Proven Sulphide 410 kt Lead 0.9 %
Proven Sulphide 410 kt Gold 2.2 g/t
Proven Gold 2,600 kt Gold 3.2 g/t
Proven Sulphide 410 kt Silver 125 g/t
Proven Gold 2,600 kt Silver 11 g/t
Proven Gold 2,600 kt Tellurium 181 g/t
Probable Sulphide 6,600 kt Zinc 6 %
Probable Sulphide 6,600 kt Copper 0.4 %
Probable Sulphide 6,600 kt Lead 0.9 %
Probable Sulphide 6,600 kt Gold 1.7 g/t
Probable Gold 1,900 kt Gold 3.5 g/t
Probable Sulphide 6,600 kt Silver 91 g/t
Probable Gold 1,900 kt Silver 6 g/t
Probable Gold 1,900 kt Tellurium 135 g/t
Measured Sulphide 50 kt Zinc 4 %
Measured Sulphide 50 kt Copper 1.2 %
Measured Sulphide 50 kt Lead 0.2 %
Measured Sulphide 50 kt Gold 0.7 g/t
Measured Gold 200 kt Gold 3.5 g/t
Measured Sulphide 50 kt Silver 45 g/t
Measured Gold 200 kt Silver 8 g/t
Measured Gold 200 kt Tellurium 121 g/t
Indicated Sulphide 8,200 kt Zinc 4.4 %
Indicated Sulphide 8,200 kt Copper 0.8 %
Indicated Sulphide 8,200 kt Lead 0.5 %
Indicated Sulphide 8,200 kt Gold 0.9 g/t
Indicated Gold 1,700 kt Gold 3.2 g/t
Indicated Sulphide 8,200 kt Silver 68 g/t
Indicated Gold 1,700 kt Silver 6 g/t
Indicated Gold 670 kt Tellurium 162 g/t
Inferred Sulphide 10,500 kt Zinc 3.3 %
Inferred Sulphide 10,500 kt Copper 0.8 %
Inferred Sulphide 10,500 kt Lead 0.5 %
Inferred Sulphide 10,500 kt Gold 1.1 g/t
Inferred Gold 5,000 kt Gold 2.5 g/t
Inferred Sulphide 10,500 kt Silver 60 g/t
Inferred Gold 5,000 kt Silver 4 g/t
Inferred Gold 1,500 kt Tellurium 161 g/t

Commodity Production Costs:

CommodityUnits202020192018201720162015
C1 cash costs Zinc USD  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required 0.78 / lb 0.79 / lb 0.64 / lb 0.68 / lb
C1 cash costs Copper USD  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required 1.53 / lb 1.43 / lb 1.12 / lb 1.67 / lb
C1 cash costs Gold USD  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required 692 / oz 686 / oz 710 / oz 818 / oz
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

Financials:

Units202020192018201720162015
Capital expenditures M SEK  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required632   440   365   413  
Revenue M SEK  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required2,361   2,612   2,025   1,602  
Operating Income M SEK  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required756   868   548   108  
Subscription required - Subscription is required


Heavy Mobile Equipment:

Mine Management:

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 2, 2022
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 2, 2022
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 2, 2022
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 2, 2022
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 2, 2022
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required May 2, 2022
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

Staff:

EmployeesYear
Subscription required 2020

Corporate Filings & Presentations:

DocumentYear
................................... Subscription required 2020
................................... Subscription required 2020
................................... Subscription required 2020
................................... Subscription required 2020
................................... Subscription required 2020
................................... Subscription required 2020
................................... Subscription required 2020
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

Aerial view:

Subscription required - Subscription is required.

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