On Thursday, January 12, the Swedish mining group LKAB announced the discovery of the largest known deposit of rare earth metals in Europe in the region of the city of Kiruna in the far north of Sweden.

According to a preliminary estimate, the deposits contain more than a million tons of raw materials, which now come entirely from China.

This was reported by Politico with reference to the company's statement.

"This is the largest known deposit of rare earth elements in our part of the world, and it can become a significant basis for the production of critically important raw materials," the president and CEO of LKAB, Jan Moström, exclaims.

Currently, this raw material is not mined in Europe, and China provides almost 98 percent of supplies to the EU.

There are risks that China, for economic or political reasons, may refuse to supply raw materials, offering only finished products.

Rare earth metals are essential raw materials, in particular, in the production of batteries for electric vehicles and wind turbines.

According to the European Commission, it is expected that by 2030 the demand for these elements will increase more than five times.

Given the current permitting procedures, it could take 10 to 15 years to start work at the Kiruna mine, where the deposits were found.

Jan Moström called on Brussels to speed up and optimize these processes as part of the Act on Essential Raw Materials, which is scheduled to be announced on March 14.

"Politics should give industry the conditions to transition to ecological production without the use of fossil fuels," Swedish Minister of Energy and Industry Ebba Busch commented on the news.

As a reminder, from 2023, Turkey will start producing its own gas from the deposit found in the Black Sea, which is the largest in the history of the country and will allow to replace the fuel supplied from abroad.

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