MORE THAN IRON ORE LKAB is a high-tech international minerals group. Abigail Saltmarsh looks at its operation and its recent moves to focus on sustainability.
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KAB is one of Sweden’s oldest industrial companies and has been an important player in the country’s export industry for more than a century. The group has continued to succeed because of its ability to respond to the market and to current demand, as well as because of its emphasis on adding value and exceeding expectations. Now the group is focusing on the future again, implementing organisational changes and concentrating on sustainability. This has seen a new unit, with overall responsibility for energy, come together from the start of March 2013, says president and CEO Lars-Eric Aaro. 210 Industry Europe
“With the new organisation, we will concentrate all of our energy efforts in one unit. We can thereby achieve the very high goal we have set,” he says.
A world leader Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB (LKAB) is a high-tech international minerals group, a world-leading producer of processed iron ore products for steelmaking and a growing supplier of mineral products for other industrial sectors. It supplies highly processed iron ore products for blast furnaces and direct reduction services to the steel industry, customised minerals for other industries
and mining products and technologies. Most of its iron ore products are sold to European steelworks but it has other important markets in North Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia. Sales of industrial minerals take place chiefly in Europe and to growing markets in Asia and the USA.
A reliable partner The company was founded in 1890 and since then has played the role of reliable supplier and partner to the European steel industry. It built Europe’s first pelletising plant in Malmberget back in 1954 to improve the processing level and add value for its customers.