Beowulf Mining plc (LON:BEM) remains confident of receiving the exploitation concession for its Kallak North project even though “the goalposts have been moved”.
Plans for the company's Kallak magnetite iron ore project in northern Sweden have been thrown into disarray by a judgement in February of the Supreme Administrative Court of Sweden (SAC) regarding Tasman Metal's Norra Kärr project.
Tasman's mining licence for Norra Kärr, granted in May 2013, was cancelled by the SAC in February 2016, as it believed the decision by the Mining Inspectorate to grant the licence was not adequately supported by environmental studies.
Beowulf is confident that its environmental impact assessment (EIA) for Kallak North was completed in accordance with the recent SAC judgement; however, Beowulf has suggested to the government that the Kallak North application should be returned to the Mining Inspectorate, such that a review of the EIA in the context of the SAC judgement can be made.
"Up until the SAC judgement, it has been working practice in Sweden to limit decision criteria for an exploitation concession to the concession Area,” explained Kurt Budge, chief executive officer of Beowulf.
"Whatever further review of the EIA takes place, it brings forward work that would, until the SAC judgement, have been done in the environmental permitting stage; with regards to the overall timeline for Kallak's development, the extra time to be taken now to award the Concession, is not significant. We welcome the opportunity to further demonstrate our responsible approach to the development of Kallak,” he added.
"Beowulf will continue to reach out and work with all its stakeholders and interested parties, in getting Kallak permitted and a mine built,” Budge declared.
The shares lost almost a fifth of their value on the news.