Business News and Economic News: Top Stories

Finnish mine struggles to fix leak, high uranium found

Reuters Translate This Article
9 November 2012

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish nickel miner Talvivaara said on Friday it was still trying to fix a waste water leak at its mine in Sotkamo, eastern Finland, which resulted in high levels of uranium in nearby waters.

Uranium more than 50 times higher than normal levels were found in streams this week near Talvivaara's nickel and zinc mine, according to nuclear safety officials, although they said they did not see any risk to public health. The ore from the mine also contains uranium.

Talvivaara shut down production at the mine on Sunday after discovering the leakage, the latest in a series of problems at the site over the past year including environmental concerns and the death of a worker in March.

The company announced early on Friday that it stopped the leakage, but later said that another leak had occurred and it was working to fix it.

Local authorities denied it permission to restart the plant on Friday, blocking the company's earlier plan to get it back online by the weekend.

Its London-listed shares fell nearly 15 percent to 103.5 pence, while those on the Helsinki bourse fell 14.5 percent to 1.30 euros.

Talvivaara, which pioneered the use of bacteria to extract nickel, said it now needs to reconsider its target of producing more nickel in the fourth quarter than in the previous quarter.

But even before the week's problems, the company was already struggling with low production and weak nickel prices. Talvivaara has cut its annual nickel production target twice this year, blaming heavy rainfall for disrupting production.

In the third quarter, it swung to a quarterly operating loss of 4.3 million euros compared to a profit of 5.5 million euros a year earlier.

(Reporting by Terhi Kinnunen; Writing by Ritsuko Ando; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Copyright © 2012 Reuters
Reuters content is the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters or its third party content providers. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. 'Reuters' and the Reuters Logo are trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its affiliated companies. For additional information on other Reuters media services please visit reuters.com/newsagency.

Global Good News comment:

For Maharishi's Vedic Approach to solving the problems of today's news, please visit:
http://maharishi-programmes.globalgoodnews.com/

Translation software is not perfect; however if you would like to try it, you can translate this page using:

(Google)
(Altavista babelfish)