Speakers – day 1

Speakers for day 1 of the conference – January 29

For speakers on day 2 of the conference – click here »

Lisa Ek

Partner and Managing Director of Nordic Strategy Partners | Board Director Lunova AB, Nordic Quick Systems, Ditwin AB, Noah – Lokal Mat, Luleå Näringsliv

Lisa Ek isa an experienced management consultant with a demonstrated history of working with growth, investments and innovation. Strong business development professional with a Master of Science focused in Industrial Engineering and Management from Tekniska högskolan vid Linköpings universitet.

Government address to the conference

Ebba Busch

Minister for Energy, Business and Industry and Deputy Prime Minister

Madalina Ivanica

Deputy Head of Raw Materials, DG GROW

Madalina Ivanica is Deputy Head of Unit in the European Commission – Unit on Energy Intensive Industries, Raw Materials and Hydrogen of the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs since January 2022. She previously worked in the Directorate-General for Environment in the area of enlargement and accession negotiations and EU inter-institutional relations. Ms. Ivanica served also as Advisor to the Romanian Chief Negotiator for accession to the European Union and was Director of Studies and an Associate Professor in European Studies at the Maastricht University. Ms. Ivanica received a Ph.D. in economics and holds a B.Sc. (Honours) in Psychology.

Strengthening the supply chain for the European battery industry – a prerequisite for Europe’s competitiveness

The European Battery Alliance has in just a few years turned Europe into a hotspot for investments along the entire battery value chain; rapidly closing the investment gap with its major Asian competitors. The growing demand for batteries will in turn affect the demand for battery materials. Forecasts show a 80% market share for EVs in Europe by 2030. At the same time, the EU is dependent on importing more than 80% of the necessary battery materials making the supply chain for the battery industry vulnerable. Secure access to the supply chains for batteries raw materials is therefore an important part to avoid bottlenecks in the battery value chain, maintain the competitiveness of the European industry and at the same time build strategic autonomy by reducing dependencies in the supply chain. Is Europe’s approach sufficient to reach those ambitions?

Ilka von Dalwigk

EBA Policy Manager at EIT Innoenergy

Ilka von Dalwigk works as Policy Manager at EIT Innoenergy with the industrial development programme of the EBA with a strong focus on sustainability and supply chain topics. She has been instrumental in building up and managing the vast and complex network of the stakeholders in this initiative, as well as developing the set of initial recommendations that contributed to the design and content of the 43 actions that have been identified as necessary by the European Battery Alliance, to make the EU a key player in the global battery market. Today she is leading the work in updating those recommendations to sustain the global leadership of the European battery industry in the face of the Inflation Reduction Act and other recent challenges.

Towards Sustainable Mining: A global standard for responsible mining

Minerals and metals are essential to modern society, critical technologies, and the infrastructure required to support the global energy transition. Yet, there are significant environmental and social risks associated with mining activities. Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) is a sustainability program implemented by over 200 companies around the globe to manage these risks while meeting society’s needs for minerals, metals, and energy products. Established nearly twenty years ago, TSM was the first responsible mining standard in the world to require site-level assessments with external verification. Through TSM, mine sites develop comprehensive sustainability management systems and report annually on key indicators of performance in areas like climate change, Indigenous and community relationships, and biodiversity conservation management.

Katherine Gosselin

Director, Towards Sustainable Mining, The Mining Association of Canada

Katherine manages implementation of the TSM program in Canada and supports adoption of the program by mining associations around the world. Previously, she worked for the Government of Canada where she collaborated with Latin American governments to promote sustainable mining practices, provided advice in support of North American trade negotiations, and was responsible for Canada’s international collaboration and policy development related to critical minerals trade and investment. She holds an MSc in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Permitting processes and mining in Sweden – an international comparison

In the EU, we need to source more of our minerals domestically. In Sweden, we have the geology and the mining expertise to meaningfully contribute to this change. But do we have the permitting processes in place to ensure that this can happen, and in a way that contributes to the longer term wise extraction and use of minerals? The permitting processes for mineral projects in Sweden has been the subject of much debate, and in this session, Dr Tarras-Wahlberg will explain how these processes differ from those found in other important mining countries, and also weigh in on to what extent reform may be relevant and/or needed.

Håkan Tarras-Wahlberg

Senior consultant with Swedish Geological AB, and Team Leader for the planetGOLD Bolivia project

Håkan has had a long and multidisciplinary career within the mineral and natural resource sector, working extensively internationally as well as in Sweden. He holds undergraduate degrees in Geology and Ocean and Atmosphere sciences (Cape Town), Masters degrees in Law (Dundee), and Environment and development (Cambridge), as well as a PhD in Geography (Cambridge).

Stefan Romedahl

President Boliden Mines

Stefan Romedahl, born 1967, is the President of Boliden Mining Division since 2018 and reporting to CEO. The current position is the third time in Boliden since 1994. He is a member of the board in SveMin and GAF, the Swedish Branch organisation for mining. Stefan is a member of the Steering Committee in Euromines since 2018.

Before joining Boliden, Stefan held a position in LKAB Group Management as Director of Production North (Kiruna). Among other positions he has been the project Director for the Swedish Nuclear Waste Repository (SKB) and the Managing Director of Zinkgruvan AB (Lundin Mining)

Mr. Romedahl holds a Mining Engineer, M.Sc. in Geotechnology.

Mining investment risk: Where Scandinavia sits in the global rankings

Mining Journal Intelligence’s World Risk Report provides a comprehensive assessment of mining investment risk, with more than 120 jurisdictions rated in the recent 2023 edition. Based on 11 ‘hard risk’ metrics and 600+ survey responses, the report shows how Scandinavia compares to its rivals and the region’s core strengths and areas for improvement.

Sam Williams

Editor, Mining Journal Intelligence

Sam joined Mining Journal publisher Aspermont in 2022 as editor of Mining Journal Intelligence, which produces research reports on global mining risk, top mining projects, financial data, and insights from industry leaders and investors. Prior to his current role, Sam worked as a journalist for 17 years, including 10 years reporting on the mining industry from Mexico and the UK.

Annelie Wirtén

Director General Geological Survey of Sweden

Anneli Wirtén is General Director of SGU – the Geological Survey of Sweden – since March 2020. Anneli has an Degree in Law and was from 2011 Deputy Governor and acting Governor in Jönköping County. She has earlier been Programme Director within the EU Structural Funds. SGU is responsible for issues relating to rock, soil and groundwater, including the handling of minerals. SGU is also the Agency with particular responsibility for the environmental quality objective Good-quality Groundwater, which includes the objective of reducing the use of natural gas. The Agency also has the task of creating conditions conducive to a sustainable use of the country’s mineral resources and promoting sustainable growth and enterprise within the mining and mineral sector.

Exploration in Sweden; the legal framework and the importance of being a good neighbor

The Minerals Act stipulates rights and obligations of those who engage in exploration work in Sweden and the Mining Inspectorate issues permits and resolves conflicts withing this framework. However, prospectors may also need permits according to other regulations and, more importantly, must engage in community outreach to succeed. What to expect: An overview of the legal framework plus tips and pointers from the Chief Mining Inspector.

Helena Kjellson

Chief Mining Inspector, the Mining Inspectorate of Sweden

Helena Kjellson is the newly appointed Chief Mining Inspector and heads the Mining Inspectorate of Sweden. The Mining Inspectorate has its main office in Luleå in northern Sweden and issues exploration permits, exploitation concessions and land designations amongst other things. She holds a master’s degree in law and started her career in the Swedish court system. She has spent the last 15 years at the Geological Survey of Sweden as a legal adviser and at managerial positions within the field of hydrogeology and remediation.

Mahvie Minerals poised for rapid development

Since the Company began in 2022, Mahvie Minerals have made headway in developing the two main assets of the Company, the base metal project in Mo I Rana in Norway and the gold project Haveri in Finland. Lately, substantial modelling has been carried out as well as some initial drilling in order to verify the models. So far, everything seem to be in-line with expectations. In Finland, the Company received a prolongations of the exploration permit at Haveri and has started exploration and mine development efforts in earnest. In Haveri, the focus is on the higher grade portions of the deposit thus increasing profitability while slightly decreasing the possible mined area.

Per Storm

CEO of Mahvie Minerals AB (publ.)

Per Storm is the CEO of Mahvie Minerals AB (publ.). He has previously been CEO of Copperstone Resources, EIT RawMaterials North AB (an European raw materials funding agency), Raw Materials Group RMG AB and has been involved as a board member and chairman of the board in several junior mining companies. He holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering and is a Docent in the Innovation processes of the Mining and Steel Industry, both from KTH. Per Storm is a fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences as well as several professional organizations.

Funding Exploration Projects

* Introduction to the EMX business model and how we survive in even tough market conditions.
* Overview on how our partners commonly get financed, with a Canadian and Australian regulatory perspective, which could improve the investment landscape in Sweden if the same or similar regulations would be implemented.
* Why Sweden is a good place to work anyways. Cost overview of working in Sweden

Johannes Holzäpfel

Exploration Manager – Europe, EMX Royalty Corp./EMX Scandinavia AB

Mr. Holzäpfel has over 12 years of experience in the mineral exploration industry. He worked in copper and gold exploration in Indonesia and Mongolia. In the DRC Mr. Holzäpfel lead an exploration team of Ivanhoe Mines in search for copper and other base-metals in the Central-African-Copper-Belt. He also worked with Boliden in Sweden exploring for base metals in the prolific Bergslagen district. In 2011, Mr. Holzäpfel graduated with a Master’s degree in Economic Geology from the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany

How to secure a predictable mine opening

Continuous financing and building the organization throughout exploration and feasibility studies The road to a reopening of Viscaria copper mine.

Jörgen Olsson

CEO of Copperstone Resources

Jörgen, the former chairman, now serves as the CEO of Copperstone Resources. This new Swedish junior mining company is dedicated to reopening the Viscaria copper mine in Kiruna. Jörgen has an extensive track record in building corporate culture, financing, and driving profitable growth. For instance, he previously held the positions of chairman and CEO at Hoist Finance, a company with approximately 1,700 employees.

Smart Exploration Research Centre: knowledge and innovation inspiring 21st century mineral explorationists

Mineral exploration in the 21st century requires a mindset change educating skilled and innovative explorationists comfortable with risks and thinking outside the box and ahead of the curve. In a synergetic work, the mineral exploration industry must constantly develop new tech solutions to enable responsible, socially acceptable, resilient, and sustainable supply of critical raw materials. These commodities are required for a smooth energy transition and to meet the climate targets. Sweden and in general Nordic countries have suitable geology and tech-solution providers to address these challenges. Led by Uppsala University, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) has granted funding (2024-2029) for a multidisciplinary research centre to conduct basic and innovative research of high international significance on critical raw materials.

Alireza Malehmir

Professor of Applied Geophysics at Uppsala University, Sweden

Alireza Malehmir has BSc-MSc degrees in mining engineering-exploration and PhD in exploration geophysics. He is a Professor of Applied Geophysics at Uppsala University-Sweden. He was the PI of the award-winning H2020 Smart Exploration project and is a co-PI of FUTURE, a European-South African tech-type mineral exploration collaborative project. He is the research director of the Smart Exploration Research centre (for 2024-2029). He has (co)authored +140 peer-reviewed journal publications and is incoming editor-in-chief of Geophysical Prospecting. He sits on several nordic national funding bodies as an expert panellist and acts as an adviser for large R&D projects globally. He is the founder of Nordic Geophysics start-up company and holder a number of patents and trademarks.

Next generation sustainable intelligent mining systems for a paradigm shift in mine production

NEXGEN SIMS is an international consortium of mining companies, equipment and system manufacturers and universities. The project is coordinated by mining equipment and service supplier Epiroc and the including project partners consist of mining companies Boliden, Agnico Eagle Finland, KGHM Polska, K+S and OZ Minerals; services and system suppliers Ericsson, Mobilaris MCE, AFRY, Combitech and KGHM Cuprum; business developer LTU Business and universities Luleå University of Technology and RWTH Aachen University – all based in Europe, except for OZ Minerals which is based in Australia.
The key aspect of the project is to develop autonomous carbon neutral mining processes. This includes the use of battery-electric mining equipment, full utilization of 5G for optimal connectivity and positioning, autonomous material handling, AI powered traffic and fleet control and collaboration among machines. Also focusing on the mine worker of the future – ‘the modern miner’ -and safety, for example by developing autonomous mine inspection technology.

Jan Gustafsson

Senior Project Manager, Strategical Projects, and Alliances. UR&D Technology development

Over 20 years’ experience from managing development projects within R&D. Both as engineering responsible, project manager and R&D group manager. The last 17 years working for Epiroc and product development of mining equipment. Coordinator for the NEXGEN SIMS consortium and Managerial background in different areas.

Rethinking raw materials import dependency

Bernd Schäfer

CEO, EIT Raw Materials

Bernd Schäfer has over 30 years of international business experience. Prior to joining EIT Raw Materials as CEO and Managing Director, he was CEO of apt Group, a leading European aluminium company. He was previously the Vice President Commercial, Global Commercial Transportation and Industrial at Alcoa. His area of accountability included global market responsibility as well as execution of the innovation agenda and technology roadmap. Mr. Schäfer was a long-time Board Member of the trade association of the aluminium industry and the umbrella of metal producing companies in Germany until 2020.

Jason LaTorre

Ambassador of Canada to Sweden

Jason LaTorre was appointed as Ambassador of Canada to Sweden in September 2021. Prior to his appointment, he served as Chief of Staff to Canada’s Deputy Minister of International Trade from 2019 to 2021. He holds a bachelor of commerce degree in international business from the University of Victoria (1995) and a master’s degree in international affairs from Carleton University (2000).

Swedish School of Mines and CAMM: Education & Research at LTU for the Green Transition

Swedish School of Mines combines research, education and infrastructure across the entire value chain of minerals and metals. It is an initiative to deliver the skills and competence for the whole mining and recycling value chain that the world demands through the green transition. CAMM is the Centre of Advanced Mining and Metallurgy at LTU, providing fundamental basic research for that mission.

Saeed Chehreh Chelgani

Director of Swedish School of Mines at LTU

Saeed Chehreh Chelgani, Director of Swedish School of Mines (SSM) at LTU, is within the list of the top 2% of scientists worldwide, with over 150 peer-reviewed journal publications (H-index 37). He is an Associate Professor in Mineral Processing at LTU who mainly works on upgrading critical raw materials and recycling.

Thomas Aiglsperger

Director of the Centre of Advanced Mining and Metallurgy (CAMM) at LTU

Thomas Aiglsperger is the director of the Centre of Advanced Mining and Metallurgy (CAMM) at LTU, consisting of more than 50 researchers working along the entire mining value chain. He is an Associate Professor in Applied Geochemistry at LTU and has worked on target mineralogy of critical raw materials for the last 13 years.

Deposit to Regional Scale exploration in Fennoscandia

The primary objective of the D-REx project is to improve the identification of previously unrealized endowed regions. Historically, efforts to understand mineralized systems have focused on the near surface identification and evaluation of individual resource bodies using shallow imaging techniques. The D-REx is developing a new paradigm shifting approach of large scale regional exploration in full 3-D guiding targeted investigation of near surface mineral resources. This will allow large scale regional low cost exploration to identify targeted areas with high mineral resource probability.

Maxim Smirnov

Chair and Coordinator of Geoelectromagnetic services within European Plate Observing System (EPOS) and Principal Investigator in Deposit to Regional Scale exploration project (D-Rex) in Fennoscandia

Maxim Smirnov has made several contributions to enhancing our understanding of the geoelectric structure of the Fennoscandian Lithosphere using electromagnetic methods. He pioneered innovative techniques for processing electromagnetic data and contributed to advancing the development and application of state of the art 3-D modelling. Over the years, he led multiple large-scale field campaigns, acquiring substantial volumes of regional-scale data applicable to mineral exploration and the search for geothermal resources. He is an Associate Professor in Applied Geophysics at LTU.

Lena Alakangas

Professor of Applied Geochemistry at the Department of Social, Environmental and Natural Resource Engineering at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden

Lena Alakangas is Professor of Applied Geochemistry at the Department of Social, Environmental and Natural Resource Engineering at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. She is an environmental geochemist with research that focuses on the understanding of geochemical processes in natural environments and environments that have been affected by human activities such as mining. The research also includes evaluation and development of preventive methods to reduce environmental impact. She is currently head of the research subject Applied Geochemistry, which includes research in analytical chemistry, isotope geochemistry and environmental forensics, in order to trace the source of pollutants and geochemical processes. She works closely with the extractive industry and infrastructure companies.

Mineral demand 2050, a story of economic development in the global South

Iron, Copper, & Nickel demand in 2050 is driven by economic development in lower income economies of the global south. A new World Bank study discusses the development of demand of the three most important metals in terms of building societies and creating economic wealth. Through an analysis linking historical demand to societal building a scenario of future demand has been established.

Anton Löf

Co-founder of RMG-Consulting (RMG), Stockholm, Sweden

Anton has since the early 2000 worked as a consultant in the mining industry. He is co-founder of RMG-Consulting (RMG), Stockholm Sweden, established in 2016 which builds on the work of Raw Materials Group.

Anton has worked with various divisions of international organisations such as UNCTAD, World Steel Association, the World Bank, United Nations University and International Seabed Authority. Furthermore, he has worked with government institutions in the Nordic region and Africa as well as mining and exploration companies, equipment suppliers and financial institutions.

A regular speaker at both China Mining, China Int’l Steel & Raw Materials as well as Fast Markets iron ore events. He regular publishes articles on the mining industry for various trade magazines as well as the academic press.

Christian Kopfer

Equity and Commodity analyst Handelsbanken

Experienced Equity Research with a demonstrated history of working in the capital markets industry. Strong operations professional skilled in Equity Research, Portfolio Management, Hedge Funds, Investment Banking, and Equities.