Agnico Eagle Finland’s team recently attended the 11th Fennoscandian Exploration and Mining Conference, or FEM 2017. The conference, which ran from October 31st to November 2nd, is held every other year in Levi, Finland and this year brought together approximately 1,200 ore exploration and mining professionals from around the globe.

As the event’s main sponsor Agnico Eagle’s Jani Lösönen, Vice President, Europe, greeted the audience on behalf of the company. André van Wageningen, Manager, Technology and Development at our Kittilä mine, also delivered a keynote address describing the future of mining technology.

In addition, Agnico Eagle Finland Oy sponsored a very special fireworks show which was organized to commemorate both Finland’s centennial year and also the 150th birthday of Canada. And, of course Agnico Eagle had one additional reason to celebrate this year as 2017 marks the company’s 60th year of operation. A special 60th anniversary logo was displayed with pride at the company’s tradeshow booth in the Canada Pavilion.

The FEM Special Award went to Ingmar Haga

Ingmar Haga, who was Agnico Eagle’s Vice President, Europe, for many years, received the FEM Special Award for his lifetime contribution to the development of the extractive sector in Finland. In addition, Agnico Eagle recognized our retiring Vice President with a gift presented by Mr. Lösönen, who praised Mr. Haga for his remarkable contributions to Agnico Eagle and the success of the Kittilä mine.

Another highlight was the presentation of the fourth-ever Agnico Eagle Award which was granted on the opening night of the conference. It went to Heikki Niskavaara, Business Director of Labtium Oy, in recognition of his long and successful career in the development of precious metal analysis methods.

Nearly 100 people visited the Kittilä mine during the FEM week

The Kittilä mine has traditionally hosted multiple visitor groups during the week of the FEM conference and 2017 was no exception. A group of about 40 geology and mining engineering students, from Mexico and various European countries, visited the mine on the Tuesday of the conference.

On the Friday we had the honour of welcoming Glenn Mullan, the president of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) who, in addition to visiting the mine, also took some time to learn about geology in the Central Lapland greenstone belt and the discovery of the Suurikuusikko gold deposit. Of particular interest were the effects of the mine on surrounding communities, a subject that was discussed at length as those issues are equally important and relevant in Northern Canada.

The 2017 FEM conference officially concluded on Friday with an organized excursion for a group of 45 pre-registered conference attendees to the Kittilä mine.

We’d like to congratulate the FEM 2017 organizing committee and all of the Agnico Eagle Finland participants for their efforts – the event was unquestionably a great success!

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