SRK Consulting (UK) Ltd has become the first international mining consultancy to open a permanent office in Sweden. The office is in Skellefteå, a coastal town at the head of Skellefte mining district.

Sweden is the largest producer of metals in the European Union. Together with Finland and Norway, Sweden has seen a major increase in exploration and development expenditure over the past decade. This was fuelled by changes in mining laws that saw the lifting of restrictions on foreign investment and the abolition of state participation in mining projects.

Johan Bradley, managing director SRK (Sweden), said: “It is important for us to have an office here in Sweden as a base for offering services to the mining sector across the region.

“Several mining companies here are forging ahead with major mine expansion programmes and as regional exploration gains momentum again, I am confident our office will be ideally placed to assist these companies in both these areas.”

SRK (Sweden) will be exhibiting at the Securing the Future conference in Skellefteå in June 2009 and at the Fennoscandian Exploration and Mining conference in Rovaniemi, Finland, in December.

Formed in 1974, the SRK group now employs more than 800 professional internationally in 38 permanent offices on six continents. SRK’s 1,500 clients include the world’s major and medium-sized metal and industrial mineral mining houses, junior and mid-tier exploration and mining companies, banks, construction firms and government departments.