The Phönix Fluorspar Mine of Mitteldeutsche Fluorit GmbH is located at Schobse creek near Gehren in the Thuringian forest.
Mitteldeutsche Fluorit GmbH is a company of the Fluorchemie Group and was founded in 2004 to extract fluorspar and barite from the Floßberggang deposit between Ilmenau and Möhrenbach.
Mitteldeutsche Fluorit GmbH is the owner of the mining rights.
The vein deposit includes an exploration target for the central part of the deposit of 3.5 to 4.0 million tonnes grading 0.9 to 1.4 million tonnes of CaF2 in several districts and at depths of up to 400 m below surface. In addition, the remaining parts of the deposit provide an exploration potential of an additional 3.5-4.5 million tonnes of ore with a CaF2 content of an additional 1.1-1.5 million tonnes.
In the currently on site planned processing plant the crude ore is to be processed into saleable acid spar. After an active opening phase until 2009 the mine is since 2022 under active development and prepared for mining with modern technology. Large diesel-powered machinery is used. The operation is carried out using drilling and blasting techniques. The operation is executed as sub- level stoping with backfill.