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).[12]
In 1957, Jan Wyżykowski discovered copper ore deposits near Lubin and Polkowice ("Sieroszowice" field).[13]
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.[14] 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").[15][16]
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.[17]
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.
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.[18]
Integration
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.[19][20]
Since then, Quadra FNX has been operating under the new name of KGHM International Ltd. The transaction value amounted to approximately $2.9 billion.[21] 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.[22]
Recent developments
In May 2015, a new production line was launched at the Nitroerg plant in Bieruń.[23]
In 2022, the company announced plans to invest in the renewable energy sector, especially in offshore wind farms,[24] 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.[25]
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
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.[29]
