Here you will find relevant links to various documents that deal with the Fen complex. The overview can be useful for those who wish to familiarize themselves more with the matter and read further.
Author: Tor Espen Simonsen
Published: 14 Nov, 2023
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Updated: 28 Dec, 2023
The municipal board adopted on 05/04/22 a strategy for how the municipality should work with the Fen Complex and what role the municipality should have. In the strategy, emphasis is placed, among other things, on the fact that the municipality wants the whole community to benefit from the values that can be created in the Fen Complex, and that the most important success factor is that people in Nome are positive about the development.
Read more about the case and download the strategy here
In the spring of 2023, Industry Minister Jan Christian Vestre presented the country's new mineral strategy. Here it is stated that Norway shall establish the world's most sustainable mineral industry, and that critical minerals shall be given priority.
Here you will find the strategy
In 2023, the European Commission put forward its proposal for a new critical raw materials act (CRMA).
Test drilling at the Fen Complex, carried out by the Geological Advisor in Telemark and NGU in the winter of 2018/2019, shows that there are rare earth metals down to 1000 metres. The content varies between 0.02 percent to over 10 percent, with several longer zones with between 1 percent and 5 percent.
In 2021, NHO, LO, Norwegian Industry, the Norwegian Workers' Confederation and Norwegian Mining Industry came up with a joint report. There, the organization recommends that it invest in the extraction of rare earth species from the Fen Complex and that a value chain be built up for the production of permanent magnets in Telemark.
The strategy note can be read here
A process is underway to draft a new mineral law in Norway. The law will have an impact on many sides and aspects of any development of a new mining industry in the Fen Complex.
You can read about the process here
Here you can read the responses to the proposal
In 2007, the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy asked the Research Council of Norway to analyze the use of thorium as an energy source. The report from the Thorium Committee was presented in 2008.
In 2012, the Geological Advisor of Buskerud, Vestfold and Telemark published the report Thorium – A future resource in the Oslofjord region. The work was done in collaboration with the Geological Advisor, Telemark University College and the Department of Energy Engineering.
Many associate the Fensfield with the radioactive slag heap left by AS Norsk Bergverk in the 1960s. It is important to remember that the radioactive slag does not originate from the mining itself, but from the industrial production of ferroniobium in the period 1958-1965. This is explained in Geological Advisor Sven Dahlgren's report from 2005
This interactive map from Direktoratet for mineralforvaltning shows who has mineral rights in the Fen Complex according to the Minerals Act.
(How to use the map: Select Verktøy to the left of the screen and then check the box for DMF.)
Fensfelet.no is owned by Nome municipality and Midt-Telemark og Nome utvikling AS (MTNU). The purpose of the website is to provide good and objective information about the Fen Complex to anyone who is interested.
