The recent mention of Norwegian iron ore reminded me that in 1969
I was involved with a study of the iron ore mines in the Dunderland
Valley, inland from the Norwegian port and steelworks town of
Mo i Rana. As background to the then mining activities I made a
report (essentially translating from a Norwegian document )
outlining some of the history of the deposit. Although of no
relevance to Dick Vara's enquiry relating to 1800, it nevertheless
might be of interest to some folk:
"The claims to the ore deposits which Rana Gruber manages
today can be divided into two groups. One, consisting of 780 claims,
was owned until the end of the 1800s by the Swedish consul. Persson.
......Around 1900 he sold it all to the Edison Ore Milling Syndicate, in
which he himself was a shareholder. The rights and property then
transferred again to the [ British based] Dunderland Iron Ore Company,
which began operations with the Edison syndicate to turn the ore
deposit to account.
"Construction work began in 1902. At Storforshei an open pit was
started and a concentrator plant built to handle 5,000 tons of raw ore
per day. The ore was crushed dry, dried further and prepared by dry
separation and air classifying. At Gullsmedvik a briquetting plant
and a quay were built. Between Gullsmedvik and Storforshei a
railway was laid.
[ Note "Gullsmedvik" = goldsmith's creek, the Vikings being
the "Creek people"]
"Production started in 1906, but immediately there cropped up huge
technical difficulties, and in 1908 the work was stopped after about
85,000 tons of briquettes had been produced from 360,000 tons of
raw ore, that is 4.23 tons of raw ore per ton of product.
[ As I recall it, the main separation process used a magnetic
separator designed by U.S. inventor Thomas Edison (hence the
'Edison' Ore Milling Syndicate). For this the ore had to be
absolutely dry, which meant passing it through a drier. At some
stage the entire plant, situated in a wooden building, caught fire.
I remember being shown old "before" and "after" photographs].
"In the following year (1909) many alternative processes were
examined and they ended up with a building and works for wet
magnetic and wet mechanical separation in Gullsmedvik. That
was ready in 1917 but on account of the war and the subsequent
depression this did not start to operate until 1928, then stopped
because of a lockout in 1931 and was standing idle until 1937,
whereafter the works were going until the outbreak of war in 1939.
"...On account of its phosphorus content, the concentrate could
only be sold to a single German steelworks. Thus when the war
came the exports of concentrates [by a British company to a
German steelworks] came to a dead stop, and with that the whole
of the works. Soon the Germans came, and the Dunderland Iron
Ore Company fell under German administration. After the war,
the German interests were taken over by the Directorate for
Hostile Possessions, and in 1947, D.I.O.C.'s buildings,
machines, properties and rights were purchased by the
Norwegian state."
Tony Brewis
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