KGHM Metraco S.A., headquartered in Legnica (ul. Św. M. Kolbe 9), is a trading and production company of the KGHM Polska Miedź S.A. Group, registered in the Polish National Court Register under KRS 0000268433; its principal activity is the wholesale of metals and metal ores. Founded in 1991, the company’s main purpose is to provide KGHM Polska Miedź S.A. with comprehensive services for selected raw materials and products, based on logistics; it handles products generated in the mines and smelters and recovers copper. In 2014 it took over KGHM Ecoren S.A.; its subsidiaries are Centrozłom Wrocław S.A. and WMN “Łabędy” S.A.
The Metals and Recycling Department sources copper scrap, copper-alloy scrap and copper-bearing materials (40–80% Cu) for KGHM’s smelters; the Scrap Trading Plant in Owczary processes several tens of thousands of tonnes a year, and the company describes itself as the largest buyer of copper scrap in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. The Raw Materials Recovery Plant processes some 3,000 t a year of furnace linings from the Głogów, Legnica and Cedynia smelters, producing more than 1,000 t of copper and silver concentrate. The company produces ammonium perrhenate and metallic rhenium (pellets of 99.95% Re) and aggregates from copper slag (capacity 1.5 million t a year), is the exclusive distributor of rock salt from the Polkowice-Sieroszowice mine and operates a sulphuric acid terminal in the Port of Szczecin; it organises shipments of around 1 million t a year.
The company’s mission is to serve customers in returning production waste to reuse: copper scrap goes as feed to smelting furnaces, rhenium is recovered from acidic industrial effluents of the Głogów smelter and eluates of the Legnica smelter, and copper slag is processed into road aggregates. The company also handles waste from KGHM’s divisions, including Cu and Al cable scrap, motors, transformers and WEEE; according to its website, it is Europe’s only producer of rhenium from primary sources. It holds ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 37001 and EN 9100 certificates and AEO status. As an IGMNiR member, KGHM Metraco represents copper scrap trading and the recovery of metals from smelting waste within the KGHM Polska Miedź Group.