Northland Successfully Completes their First Blast of Iron Ore in Kaunisvaara
Luxembourg, October 18, 2012 – Northland Resources S.A. (TSX: NAU, OSL: NAUR, Frankfurt: NPK, STO: NAURo – “Northland” or the “Company”) has completed the first iron ore blast at their Tapuli mine in Kaunisvaara. The Company is continuing on track to start production in November.
Northland Resources has now completed its first blast consisting of 90,000 tonnes of iron ore and 320,000 tonnes of waste rock. Altogether, Northland has now blasted close to 1 million tonnes of rock. The iron ore will initially be stockpiled before being fed into the primary crusher late in October. The next stage of the process is to fill the stockpiles before the ore enters the production building early in November.
“Today’s blast was very successful. We have proved, yet again, that we are able to keep to our tight time schedule, which is very important when developing a project such as this”, said Karl-Axel Waplan, President & CEO of Northland. “We look forward to updating the market with news of first production of our high quality iron ore concentrate”.
The Company is on track to start processing the iron ore at the Kaunisvaara process plant in November and plans to produce 1.4 million dry tonnes per annum (“dmtpa”) of iron ore concentrate in 2013. Production rates will reach 4 dmtpa in the third quarter of 2014. The first shipment of concentrate from the Port of Narvik in Norway is planned for early first quarter 2013.
“Karl-Axel Waplan”
President & CEO, Northland Resources S.A.
For more information, please contact:
Karl-Axel Waplan, President and CEO: +46 705 104 239
Peder Zetterberg, Acting CFO, +46 708 652 120
Anders Antonsson, Vice President – Investor Relations: +46 709 994 970
Or visit our website: www.northland.eu
Northland is a near-production stage mining company with a portfolio of iron ore projects in northern Sweden and Finland. The Company’s Kaunisvaara Project will initially exploit two magnetite iron ore deposits in Sweden. The process will yield a high-grade, high-quality magnetite iron concentrate. The construction of the Kaunisvaara project in Sweden is well underway and mining is expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2012. Northland has entered into off-take contracts for the entire production from Kaunisvaara over the next seven to ten years. The Company is also preparing a Definitive Feasibility Study (“DFS”) for its Hannukainen Iron Oxide Copper Gold (“IOCG”) Project in Kolari, northern Finland and for its Pellivuoma deposit 15 km from the Kaunisvaara process plant.