On March 27, 40 years after discovery of the deposit, Silver Mine was officially opened.
The opening ceremony was attended by Finnish prime minister Juha Sipilä and another 240 guests.
At the event, mining and processing technology company Outotec presented Sotkamo Silver AB CEO Timo Lindborg and Arto Suokas, managing director of the subsidiary Sotkamo Silver Oy, with a scale model of its TankCell flotation unit.
Outotec has delivered grinding, thickening, flotation and filtration equipment, as well as smart instruments, for the project.
Sotkamo Silver's goal is to mill 330,000-350,000t of ore in 2019 and to increase the enrichment capacity to 450,000t per year by 2020. In addition to silver, the mine will also produce gold, zinc and lead.
"Gold is also important to us. If 60-70% of the mine's production value comes from silver, around 20% will be from gold," Suokas told Finland's national broadcaster Yle.
This will be the first silver mine in Finland, with an annual production estimate of 45,000kg.
The project consists of both open-pit and underground operations, and its known ore reserves are expected to last for approximately seven years of production.
