Kiruna iron mine, Sweden - our largest tunnel blasting contract

Swedish LKAB is Europe's leading producer of iron ore. Kiruna mine in northern Sweden is the world's largest underground iron ore mine. The mine employs 2 000 employees.

Large-scale excavation contract

• In 2009-2011, we excavated four kilometres of maintenance tunnels for ore mining at the depth of one kilometre.
• We excavated a new main level at the depth of 1,365 metres. This contract included also 23 kilometres of service and maintenance tunnels which we finished 2014.
• The contract employed about 100 of our employees.
• The project will guarantee ore production in Kiruna for the next 20 years.

Professionally results

The mining job risks are different than any other in rock engineering. “Even minor power outages or fires may suspend work for a long time,” says Regional Director Kari Korhonen from YIT.

"One of the big challenges of Kiruna contract was a correct resourcing of Sweden's northernmost town. We acquired, for example, new machines and left the old ones as a reserve to speed up work. We completed the work sooner than scheduled and with the highest quality, according to the inspector,” says Kari.

mine construction