Last year, 152 applications for exploration permits were submitted to the decision-making body Bergsstaten, a slight decrease from 2024 (159). At the same time, there are currently just over 800 exploration permits.
Although that number has increased significantly over the past decade, the government, led by Minister of Industry and Trade Ebba Busch (KD), has sought to change the environmental assessment system to speed up the permit process.
Bullshit from a little clown
However, Viscaria's CEO Jörgen Olsson takes a hard line against those who want a simplified process for economic reasons.
"I think a lot of it is nonsense from little clowns who think it should be easy to open a mine. The ones who complain are those who can't afford to apply for a permit or run this kind of business. Then I've said that you should open a hot dog stand instead," he tells TT.
In Viscaria's case, the company applied for a permit in the spring of 2022. Three years later, in April 2025, it received the green light and, according to Jörgen Olsson, the permit application alone cost 120 million SEK.
"You get a mining permit to mine and ravage the land for 25 years. It is an environmentally hazardous activity, you destroy open nature and release metals and water. It will cost a lot of money because it is irresponsible to say that it will be much easier," he believes.
The Viscaria mine is located next door to LKAB's iron mine in Kiruna and was closed in 1997 when the then owner, Finnish Outokumpu, shut operations in part because of low copper prices.
Now, almost 30 years later, the situation is completely different. About a month ago, the price of copper passed $13,000 per ton for the first time, driven by demand for everything from AI infrastructure to green transitions such as electric cars and wind turbines.
The hope is that 2029 will be the first year that the Viscaria mine is in full production. Jörgen Olsson sees no reduced demand for copper in the future; quite the opposite.
"I've actually believed in this copper price since 2020. We have a much smaller supply today than demand, a global deficit."
Decreasing copper levels
Jörgen Olsson also highlights another aspect. In the world's more than 700 mines, copper levels are decreasing at the same time as a globally growing middle class is driving up the price of copper.
Doesn't it feel shameful that the mine is not in operation now, when demand is so great?
"It is what it is. I am not particularly concerned about the future price of copper as long as we do not get into a third world war; then the price of copper will plummet."
"Everything you've touched today (your clothes, your bed, sheets, your floor) is indirectly copper because it's made with modern infrastructure and machinery. There is not a machine in the world that does not have copper in it."
Last fall, the company signed a letter of intent with German copper recycler Aurubis, which will cover approximately half of the mine's production. Jörgen Olsson links previous challenges regarding loan financing from the Swedish side to the crisis in Northvolt, which at the time involved Viscaria.
"It is clear that when Northvolt went downhill, there was extremely high risk aversion among Stockholm's financial institutions; everything froze," he says.
A total of six billion kronor is needed. After a new share issue last autumn, the company intends to obtain the final loan package of approximately four billion kronor by the summer.
"I am old and experienced. Nothing is guaranteed, but I am not worried. I respect the challenge," says Jörgen Olsson.
The Viscaria mine west of Kiruna was first put into operation in 1983 by LKAB, which initially mined the copper ore. In 1985, the operation was taken over by the Finnish company Outokumpu, which chose to close the mine in the late 1990s due to, among other things, falling copper prices.
The Viscaria mining company now intends to reopen it and received approval from the Land and Environmental Court at Umeå District Court in May 2024. In April 2025, the Supreme Court decided not to take up the appeal of the environmental permit.
So far, SEK 500 million has been invested in a water treatment plant.
The mine deposit is divided into four zones and extends four kilometers horizontally. Vertically, ore bodies have been mapped down to a depth of 800 meters.
The assessment is that many former mine shafts can be repaired and reused.
