KGHM Polska Miedź S.A. (Kombinat Górniczo-Hutniczy Miedzi), commonly known as KGHM (Polish pronunciation: ), is a Polish multinational mining corporation headquartered in

Lubin Lubin (; ) is a city in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland. It is the administrative seat of Lubin County, and also of the rural district called Gmina Lubin, although it is not part of the territory of the latter, as the town for ...

, Lower Silesia, Poland. Founded in 1961 as a state enterprise, the company is considered a major global producer of

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

and

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

. Since 1997, it has been listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). The company is also a component of the WIG30 stock market index. Currently, KGHM employs around 34,000 people worldwide and operates 9 open-pit and underground mines in Poland, Canada, the United States and

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

. KGHM produces key global resources including

, copper sulphate,

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

nickel Nickel is a chemical element; it has symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive, but large pieces are slo ...

, nickel sulphate,

molybdenum Molybdenum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mo (from Neo-Latin ''molybdaenum'') and atomic number 42. The name derived from Ancient Greek ', meaning lead, since its ores were confused with lead ores. Molybdenum minerals hav ...

, rhenium,

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

, sulphuric acid,

selenium Selenium is a chemical element; it has symbol (chemistry), symbol Se and atomic number 34. It has various physical appearances, including a brick-red powder, a vitreous black solid, and a grey metallic-looking form. It seldom occurs in this elem ...

platinum Platinum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a density, dense, malleable, ductility, ductile, highly unreactive, precious metal, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name origina ...

group metals.

History

Early history and foundation

In 1951, the construction of the Copper Smelter in

Legnica Legnica (; , ; ; ) is a city in southwestern Poland, in the central part of Lower Silesia, on the Kaczawa River and the Czarna Woda. As well as being the seat of the county, since 1992 the city has been the seat of the Diocese of Legnica. Le ...

was commenced to smelt copper from the ore mined in the so-called old Lower Silesian copper basin ("Lena" and "Konrad" mines). In 1957, Jan Wyżykowski discovered copper ore deposits near

and Polkowice ("Sieroszowice" field). On December 28, 1959 by the decision of the Ministry of Heavy Industry, Zakłady Górnicze "Lubin" was established as a state owned company and in 1961, transformed into Kombinat Górniczo-Hutniczy Miedzi (KGHM), which was supposed to deal with the extraction and processing of copper extracted from the newly discovered fields. At the same time, KGHM incorporated two copper mines in the area of the piedmont of the

Sudetes The Sudetes ( ), also known as the Sudeten Mountains or Sudetic Mountains, is a geomorphological subprovince of the Bohemian Massif province in Central Europe, shared by the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany. They consist mainly of mountain rang ...

from the old copper-bearing basin (closed in 1973 - "Lena" and in 2000 - "Konrad").

Expansion

In the years 1962-1975, Tadeusz Zastawnik was the director of KGHM (in the years 1952-1957 he was a Member of Parliament, and in the mid-1950s the director of the Union of Mining and Metallurgy of Non-Ferrous Metals). In 1968, the construction of the "Lubin" and "Polkowice" mines and the modernization of the Legnica smelter ended. The construction of the Głogów smelter started, and at the end of the 1960s, geologists discovered new, even richer copper deposits in Rudna. In January 1996, the "Polkowice-Sieroszowice" Division was established, which was established as the result of the merger "Polkowice" and "Sieroszowice" mines. From the day the state enterprise was established, until August 9, 1976, the Minister of Heavy Industry, and then the Minister of Metallurgy (the office was transformed into the office of the Minister of Metallurgy and Machine Industry) supervised operations.

Transformation

On September 9, 1991, the state-owned enterprise Kombinat Górniczo-Hutniczy Miedzi in Lubin was transformed into a sole-shareholder company of the State Treasury - KGHM Polska Miedź SA. On September 12, 1991, the company was entered in the commercial register kept by the District Court in

and on the same day, the court removed the former entity from the register of state-owned enterprises.

Integration

On December 6, 2011, the management boards of KGHM Polska Miedź SA and Quadra FNX Mining Ltd. signed an agreement on the takeover of the Canadian enterprise by KGHM. On February 20, 2012, the general meeting of shareholders of Quadra FNX Mining Ltd. accepted the transaction of a friendly takeover of 100% of shares in the company Quadra FNX by KGHM Polska Miedź SA, and on March 5, 2012, the above transaction was closed. Since then, Quadra FNX has been operating under the new name of KGHM International Ltd. The transaction value amounted to approximately $2.9 billion. The purchase was financed with funds of KGHM After the acquisition, the size of the combined resource base is 37.4 million tons of copper (fourth largest deposit in the world). The combined annual copper production was then 526 thousand tonnes. One of the key assets of KGHM International Ltd. is the Sierra Gorda field in

Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert () is a desert plateau located on the Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast of South America, in the north of Chile. Stretching over a strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of , which increases to if the barre ...

. The deposit is located in Chile and contains 1.3 billion tons of ore rich in copper, gold and molybdenum.

Recent developments

In May 2015, a new production line was launched at the Nitroerg plant in Bieruń. In 2022, the company announced plans to invest in the

renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...

sector, especially in offshore wind farms, and potential acquisitions of finished photovoltaic farms projects. The company is also preparing a series of investments connected to buying, processing and preparing copper-bearing scrap. Asked about the potential impact of the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

on the company, KGHM's CEO Marcin Chludzinski responded that it "would not have a significant impact on the company's operations" and that potential sanctions on Russian copper would be positive for the company. In May 2022, KGHM was represented in the Polish delegation headed by Polish President

Andrzej Duda Andrzej Sebastian Duda (born 16 May 1972) is a Polish lawyer and politician who has served as the sixth president of Poland since 2015. Before becoming president, he served as a Member of the Sejm from 2011 to 2014 and before becoming Member of ...

and Prime Minister

Mateusz Morawiecki Mateusz Jakub Morawiecki (; born 20 June 1968) is a Polish economist, historian and politician who served as the prime minister of Poland between 2017 and 2023. A member of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, he previously served in the Cabinet of ...

at the 2022 Davos World Economic Forum as part of the promotion of the Polish economy. The same year, the company also signed an agreement with US-based company NuScale Power to implement small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) technology in Poland. The first power plant is to be in operation by 2029. In 2023, the company announced a multi-million investment project in the Legnica Copper Smelter and Refinery in an effort to protect the environment. The project aims to nearly completely eliminate

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...

and mercury emissions thanks to a new Post-Process Gas Treatment Plant.

Controversy

There has been controversy where the company had dumped toxic waste into the Oder River illegally, causing a massive ecological disaster. The dumping of industrial wastewater which had a higher than normal salt content allowed the proliferation of Prymnesium parvum, a species of algae responsible for the 2022 Oder environmental disaster.

Corporate affairs

Structure

KGHM Polska Miedź currently has two subsidiaries: * KGHM International Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary * Sierra Gorda SCM is a 55% subsidiary

Leadership

KGHM is led by a six-member management board, which is led by president and CEO Andrzej Szydło. The other members are Piotr Krzyżewski, Mirosław Laskowski, Zbigniew Bryja, Piotr Stryczek i Iga Dorota Lis. The supervisory board is led by chairman Tadeusz Kocowski and vice chairman Aleksander Cieśliński.

Shareholder

Since July 1997, KGHM has been listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. As of February 2019 the company's shareholder structure is: * 31.79% - Polish State Treasury *5.05% - Nationale-Nederlanden OFE * 5.02% - Aviva OFE *58.13% - Other shareholders

Operations

KGHM has operations in the main areas mining and enrichment, metallurgy (smelting and refining) and project development and is currently active in four countries:

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and the USA. In 2017, the company produced a total of 656 thousand tons of copper, 1,234 thousand tons of silver, 117 thousand troy ounces of gold, and 10 thousand tons of

Mining and enrichment

Robinson Mine

The Robinson Mine is located in

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

. It is an open pit mine that produces copper with byproduct gold and molybdenum. It was KGHM International's most profitable mine, pulling in a net revenue of $532.9 million in 2012.

Carlota Mine

The Carlota Mine is located in

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

. Like the Robinson mine, it is an open pit mine and produces copper. It is scheduled to close in 2013, despite operating through multiple court challenges. Its net revenue for 2012 was $84.1 million.

Sierra Gorda

Sierra Gorda mine in

is a copper-molybdenum open pit mine which started production on October 1, 2014 and was originally a jointly operated by KGHM International Ltd (55%) and South32 (45%). Before the South32's takeover in 2021 the shares not owned by KGHM Polska Miedź were held by Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. (31.5%) and

Sumitomo Corporation is one of the largest worldwide '' sōgō shōsha'' general trading companies, and is a diversified corporation. The company was incorporated in 1919 and is a member company of the Sumitomo Group. It is listed on three Japanese stock exchange ...

(13.5%).

Franke mine

The Franke mine is located in northern Chile. It is also an open pit mine and produces copper. Its net revenue for 2012 was $152.5 million. KGHM International is blending Franke pit with a partnered China mine, with less mining being focused on Franke. In 2022 the mine was sold to Grupo Minero Las Cenizas.

Smelting and refining

KGHM owns three copper smelters: "Głogów", "Legnica", and "Cedynia". KGHM's smelters also produce lead, refined lead, sulphuric acid, nickel sulphate, and platinum-palladium concentrate.

Projects under development

*Deep Głogów *Victoria *Ajax Mine Project *Sierra Gorda mine

Awards and recognitions

In 2011, the company was awarded with the Fray International Sustainability Award in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, for its achievements and investments towards sustainable development.

Carbon footprint

KGHM reported Total CO2e emissions (Direct + Indirect) for the twelve months ending 31 December 2020 at 3,592 Kt (-570 /-13.7% y-o-y).Alt URL
/ref>

References

External links

KGHM Stock card

Annual Reports (2005–2015)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kghm Polska Miedz Metal companies of Poland Silver mining companies Government-owned companies of Poland Multinational companies headquartered in Poland Polish brands Non-renewable resource companies established in 1961 1961 establishments in Poland Companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange Companies in the Central European Blue Chip Index Lubin