We prepare our people well

8 April 2009

Preliminary investigations for one of the world's largest molybdenum mines.

Three and a half months. That was the time it took from when Louise Stubtoft Kærgaard was employed as a newly graduated city and construction engineer in our design department in Søborg until she found herself hiking along a glacier on Greenland's east coast, far from civilisation, with a rifle on her back as protection against polar bears and rutting musk oxen.

A rapid course in 3D modelling with the civil engineering programme AutoCAD Civil 3D provided Louise with a good theoretical foundation, but to make preliminary investigations for what could become one of the world's largest molybdenum mines, in one of the planet's least accessible areas, there is only one thing to do. “You have to see it to understand what you are up against,” says Louise. “For one thing, there's permafrost and then even the best 3D tool is inadequate.”

150 kilometres from the nearest civilisation

In summer 2008, the team went to Malmbjerget, located on Greenland's east coast 150 km from Scoresbysund – and equally far away from the nearest civilisation and infrastructure. Here they set up camp and worked for two months, having naturally brought everything with them from home. Because when you are flown by helicopter from Iceland, and all transportation takes place by four wheel motorbike or on foot, you make sure that you don't forget anything.

Where do you place a factory, a town and an airport?

The task included finding out where it would be most suitable to place a port, an airport, 65 kilometres of roads, a town for several hundred people and foundations for the enormous factories and fuel tanks required to process 25-30,000 tons of ore per day, 365 days a year.

Rifles, GPS – and a helicopter

One day, they put their rifles on their backs and walked the route for a planned road along the edge of the glacier to mark it with GPS. “At first it was easy enough to wade through the many streams of melt water, but after five or six hours we came to the flood stream, which we had to jump over, and then it all went wrong.” Louise fell in and had to be rescued by her colleagues and transported to the camp by helicopter. Despite the minor incident, she is happy to continue in Greenland. “It has been very, very exciting. And very different.”

Happy to return

“If the project goes ahead, I shall be happy to return to calculate and draw,” she says, adding that since she is new to the profession she will certainly not have the final word. But when asked whether she will have it in ten years, she answers: “I hope so!” And there is hardly any doubt that with the baptism of fire the young engineer has received, she will be well prepared for all sorts of things in 10 years' time, including smaller tasks in more accessible places.

MT Højgaard's Mining Division

MT Højgaard's Mining Division was established in 2007. We aim to construct and operate mines, initially in Greenland.

• Malmbjerget is 1,750 metres high and lies 150 km north-west of Scoresbysund, surrounded by two active glaciers. Transportation currently takes place by helicopter, four wheel motorbike or on foot.
• The molybdenum deposit, one of the world's largest, has been known since the 1960s but it is only now that a mine can be cost-effective.
• Molybdenum, the 42nd element, is a metal which is especially used in strongly corrosion-resistant or heat-resistant types of steel.

We are currently involved in the following projects:

• Preliminary investigations for a diamond mine at Garnet Lake near Søndre Strømfjord on the west coast of Greenland
• Molybdenum mine near Malmbjerget on the east coast of Greenland
• Cost-effectiveness study for a lead and zinc mine at the northern tip of Greenland
• Cost-effectiveness study in connection with ruby deposits south of Nuuk

Read more about our competences under our Mining Division.