Swedish minerals group Minelco A/S subsidiary of iron ore producer LKAB Ð has revealed it intends to close its 2m. tpa capacity olivine mine in Seqinnersuusaaq, west Greenland, before the year’s end.
“Based on [evaluations conducted] we have decided to shut down the olivine mine located in the mining site of Seqi in Greenland,” Ingela Olsson, communications manager for Minelco, told IM. “We see that we can strengthen the competitiveness of both LKAB and Minelco by purchasing olivine from an external supplier.”
According to the group, prices for olivine have fallen while market conditions have been unfavourable. Olivine has a number of uses but its principal end markets are in steel slag conditioning, refractory bricks, EBT tap-hole filler and CO2 sequestration.
“The market price of olivine has dropped and conditions that prevailed on the market when the mine was started five years...