Sweden OKs Boliden’s Laver copper concession

Sweden rejected appeals against Boliden’s (STO: BOL) mining concession for Laver, clearing a key hurdle for a copper project that could double the country’s output while leaving major environmental and Sámi land-use issues unresolved.

The government on Wednesday upheld the concession granted by Sweden’s chief mining inspector in September after two environmental groups appealed. Laver, about 700 km north of Stockholm, holds 849.5 million indicated tonnes grading 0.24% copper, according to a 2025 estimate.

Boliden still needs environmental approvals and the project lies on winter grazing land used by the Semisjaur-Njarg Sámi reindeer herding community.

“We must be able to stand on our own feet in a troubled world where copper is needed for both the power grid and defence,” Sweden’s Minister for Energy, Business and Industry Ebba Busch said in a government statement.

The order gives Boliden its second Swedish copper permitting win in less than three months as Europe tries to add domestic supplies of a metal it classifies as both critical and strategic. Sweden upheld Boliden’s Nautanen concession near its Aitik mine in May, giving the company two potential sources of new copper in northern Sweden.

Shares in Boliden gained 1.7% in Stockholm on Wednesday to close at SEK539 (C$78.42) apiece, valuing the company at about SEK153 billion (C$22.3 billion).

Political shift

Sweden’s right-wing coalition, in power since late 2022, cemented the nation’s pro-mining pivot last month by officially declaring critical and rare earth mineral extraction a matter of national security. The policy shift, which follows the Januarylifting of the country’s multi-year uranium mining ban, aims to aggressively fast-track environmental permits and reduce reliance on China.

The concession covers copper, gold, silver and molybdenum, but doesn’t allow construction. A later review under Sweden’s environmental code is to examine environmental impacts in greater detail, the government said.

Those issues could prove substantial. The Laver area, about 90 km west of coastal city Luleå in NorrbottenCounty, forms part of the Semisjaur-Njarg reindeer management district. It supports about 30 active herding businesses and as many as 9,000 reindeer in winter. Boliden’s own project work says a mine would restrict access and disrupt some existing routes, requiring measures such as alternative access and compensation.

Boliden hasn’t declared reserves at Laver and its technical and economic work remains at the conceptual-study stage. It has 122.2 million inferred tonnes grading 0.23% copper, 0.17 gram gold and 6.6 grams silver per tonne for about 281,000 tonnes contained copper, 668,000 oz. gold and 25.9 million oz. silver, according to Boliden’s 2025 mineral resource statement.

The government said Boliden plans two open pits at Lill-Laverberget with eventual ore processing of 36 million tonnes a year.  Developing the deposit could double national copper production from around 80,000 tonnes a year and lift total EU output by 10%, Stockholm estimates.

WW 2 mine

Copper mining has a long history at Laver. An earlier operation mined about 1.3 million tonnes grading 1.5% copper, 0.2 gram gold and 36 grams silver per tonne between 1938 and 1946. Boliden discovered the much larger modern deposit nearby in 2007.

Laver adds to Boliden’s push to expand copper production around its existing Swedish operations. The government rejected an appeal against Nautanen in May, preserving a concession for an underground project about 15 km northwest of Aitik. Mining there would use Aitik’s existing infrastructure.

Boliden says Nautanen could eventually supply as much as 3% of Europe’s domestic copper production, with operations possible in the early 2030s if it secures the remaining permits. The company has applied to have Nautanen designated a strategic project under the EU Critical Raw Materials Act.