Short Facts

Luossavaara Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag is owned by the Swedish government. We are world-leading in the processing of iron ore products and we are growing as a supplier of mineral products.

We have gathered facts about the LKAB organization, our development and how we look at the future. This is LKAB, the short version.

• In 1978 the first women started to work under ground.


• Today 15 percent of the employees are women.


• Kiruna is home to the world’s largest and most modern underground iron ore mine


• Malmberget is home to the world’s second largest underground iron ore mine..


• Svappavaara is LKAB’s latest mining area and the one that is expanding fastest.


• Narvik is LKAB’s biggest harbour and has a capacity of almost 20 million tons per year. LKAB Malmhamn (ore harbour) in Luleå is used for ore customers in the Baltic market and handles chiefly pellets from Malmberget


• In 2011 processed finished products amounted to around 26 million tons.


• Measured by tonnage, LKAB transports the most goods in Sweden.
• Every day 15 trains haul finished iron ore products to Narvik and Luleå. The load capacity is equivalent to a truck a minute round the clock.


• LKAB accounts for 10 per cent of Sweden’s industrial investments.


• More than four million cubic metres of rock must be excavated for the new main level in the Kiruna mine. This is a volume equivalent to seven Stockholm Globes. The first section of the new level is expected to start operations in 2013.


• The cost of building the new KUJ1365 main level has been calculated at SEK 12.4 billion.


• The service intervals for the wheels on LKAB’s locomotives is approximately 50,000 kilometres and 150,000 kilometres for the ore wagons.


• The IORE locomotives that haul our ore wagons are the world’s strongest. Each train consists of 68 wagons. Each wagon hauls 100 tons of iron ore.


• LKAB has extracted more than a billion tons of magnetite from the Kiruna mine since 1899.


• Magnetite from the Kiruna mine has an iron content of around 60–70 per cent.


• The amount of iron ore LKAB takes from the Kiruna and Malmberget mines every day can provide enough steel to build almost 6,5 Eiffel Towers.


• KUJ1365 is the seventh main level built at Kiruna.


• All of the levels in the mine are measured from Mount Kirunavaara’s old summit, Statsrådet (The Cabinet Minister), which was blown up in 1910.


• The levles in the mine in Malmberget are measured from the top of the mountain Välkomma, still excisting.


• In total LKAB has 1000 kilometres of roads in our undergrouns mines.


• Kiruna has the world’s first pelletizing plant with a NOx scrubber.