Polish copper producer KGHM Polska Miedź has released a detailed, NI 43-101-compliant technical report on the full extent of its resources and production activities.
The 159-page report was prepared by Micon International, of Canada, and follows Canada’s NI 43-101 guidelines with respect to disclosure of mining assets. KGHM commissioned the report “in order to match the highest standards of communicating with the market practiced by global companies from the mining and metals sector.”
KGHM has been in operation in the Legnica-Głogów copper belt continuously since 1961 and is listed on the Warsaw stock exchange. Its operations are fully integrated from mining to manufacture of fabricated metal products. Its principal products are electrolytic copper and refined silver.
In 2011, KGHM was the world’s ninth largest producer of mined copper and produced 571,000 mt of electrolytic copper. It was the world’s largest silver producer, with an output of 40.5 million oz of refined silver.
Saleable by-products, which together contribute only a minor proportion of KGHM’s total revenue, are gold, platinum-palladium concentrate, rhenium, selenium, lead, nickel sulphate, sulphuric acid, and rock salt, which is mined from a halite horizon in the hanging wall of the copper-silver ore zone.
KGHM’s principal operations are:
- Three large underground mines—Lubin, Polkowice-Sieroszowice, and Rudna—which extend over a strike length of approximately 40 km and have the capacity to produce about 30 million mt/y of copper-silver ore.
- Three concentrators—Lubin, Polkowice and Rudna—which have a through-put capacity of 30 million mt/y of ore and which produce 1.8 million to 1.9 million mt/y of copper-silver flotation concentrates.
- Two smelters and refineries—Legnica and Głogów—which treat all of the concentrates produced by KGHM, as well as purchased scrap and concentrates.
- The Cedynia copper rolling mill, which produces 230,000 mt/y of copper wire rod, including approximately 17,000 mt/y of specialty oxygen-free copper rod.
The Micon report includes detailed discussion of the geology and mineralization of the KGHM properties. In Micon’s opinion, proven and probable mineral reserves contained within company’s mining concessions as of year-end 2011 totaled 1,181 million mt at grades of approximately 1.58% copper and 48 g/mt silver, containing 18.6 million mt of copper and 1,800 million oz of silver. These reserves include allowances for both mining losses and dilution but do not include an allowance for metallurgical recovery. The reserves are sufficient to maintain KGHM’s current mine production rate of about 30 million mt/y for 30 to 40 years.
