KGHM Polska Miedź S.A., headquartered in Lubin (ul. Marii Skłodowskiej-Curie 48), is a producer of copper, silver and other metals, registered in the Polish National Court Register under KRS 0000023302; its principal activity is the mining of other non-ferrous metal ores. The company traces its origins to the Kombinat Górniczo-Hutniczy Miedzi (Copper Mining and Smelting Combine) established on 1 May 1961; on 12 September 1991 it was replaced by KGHM Polska Miedź S.A., which was listed on the Warsaw stock exchange in 1997. Its operations are based on Europe’s largest copper ore deposit in south-western Poland; the KGHM Group has operations on three continents – Europe, North and South America – and employs more than 34,000 people.
In Poland the company mines ore in three underground mines – Lubin, Rudna and Polkowice-Sieroszowice – concentrates it at its ore enrichment plants and produces metals at the Głogów and Legnica copper smelters and the Cedynia rod mill; geological ore resources as at 31 December 2025 exceed 1.8 billion t and contain more than 30 million t of copper and nearly 92,000 t of silver. Cathodes of the HMG-S, HMG-B and HML brands are registered on the LME, SHFE and INE; the Cedynia plant processes electrolytic copper into rod (Contirod process) and wire (Upcast), and more than 40% of cathodes from KGHM’s smelters are processed into rod and wire. The company produces around 1,200 t of silver a year, as well as gold, lead, sulphuric acid, nickel sulphate and selenium.
Besides concentrates, the Legnica smelter processes copper scrap – since 2019 it has operated a tilting melting and refining furnace fed with recycled materials containing more than 90% Cu, and the smelter’s by-products are almost entirely put to use. Flotation tailings – 20 to 26 million t a year – go to the Żelazny Most mining waste facility, where nearly 75% of them are used to raise the facility. The company states that it aims to increase the recovery of elements accompanying copper production. As an IGMNiR member, KGHM Polska Miedź represents copper mining, smelting and processing, together with associated metals – from ore extraction to rod and scrap processing.