Early history and foundation In 1951, the construction of the Copper Smelter in
Legnica 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
Lubin and
Polkowice ("Sieroszowice" field). On 28 December 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 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 9 August 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 9 September 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 12 September 1991, the company was entered in the commercial register kept by the District Court in
Legnica and on the same day, the court removed the former entity from the register of state-owned enterprises.
Integration Copper Mine in
Lower Silesia, Poland On 6 December 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 20 February 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 5 March 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 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 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 the company, KGHM's President of the Management Board 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 and Prime Minister
Mateusz Morawiecki 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 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==