At the beginning of May, the Canadian mining portal Mining.com published a ranking of the world’s largest copper mines. KGHM took sixth place, significantly trailing only the leader of this list, Chile’s Escondida mine, with production of 1.3 million tonnes of copper. The five lower‑ranked producers are in the production scale above 400,000 tonnes. This top six is closed by KGHM with production of 401,000 tonnes for the past year. This is a statistical success that the domestic media are delighted with.
However, this recognition should be tempered, as past rankings have varied. This position had previously been unattainable. So what happened that our company has now been rated so highly? In terms of production, mining and technology, the same level as always was maintained. In previous rankings, it had been noted in ninth place, which was a drop from the traditional seventh position achieved at the turn of the century. So why has such a high advance occurred now? Well, as mentioned, KGHM worked as always – solidly, technically adapting to changing mining and market conditions.
Upon closer examination of the situation of copper mining producers, it turns out that the market is dominated by copper supplies from porphyry deposits. They are the main source of copper, and annual production from these deposits satisfies over 60% of the world market. In this technology, concentrate production consists of leaching copper using sulphuric acid. Repeated extraction in a closed loop creates a concentrate of nearly 20%, which is then subjected to smelting processes until pure metal is obtained.
Lack of sulphuric acid
This production cycle has recently been seriously disrupted by the restriction of sulphuric acid supplies, more precisely sulphur for its production. Sulphur exports through the Strait of Hormuz fell from a monthly average of 1.27 million tonnes to just 30,000 metric tonnes in April 2026. Because sulphur is a by‑product of oil and gas refining, the halt in tanker traffic forced Persian Gulf states to reduce refining due to lack of storage space, directly causing a halt in sulphur production.
The lack of supply caused its prices to rise by 50% since the beginning of the conflict, and prices for delivery to Asia exceeded $1,000 per tonne. At the beginning of May 2026, global sulphur prices were characterised by high volatility, and in many regions by an upward trend.
This is influenced by a significant supply‑demand deficit, which is expected to last until 2027. The problem is not only the price but also availability, as sulphur must be ordered in advance due to its scarcity on the market. All this has led to an increase in the production costs of porphyry copper and a slowdown in its output due to difficulties in accessing sulphur and the sulphuric acid derived from it.
Producer
This problem does not affect KGHM, which produces about 600,000 tonnes of sulphuric acid annually in its smelting process. At a wholesale price of 4 zlotys per kilogram, this gives an additional 2.4 billion zlotys from this waste product, which sometimes people did not know what to do with. In total, over 60 percent of copper producers were exposed to losses, while KGHM maintained its production with additional small revenues. And this is the main factor lifting our company to such a high position in the global ranking. It happened that as a result of the aforementioned events, major copper producers suffered losses, while we maintained our production, being increasingly highly ranked. Moreover, the same sixth place was held by KGHM in the American ranking.
Noteworthy is that, for the same reasons, it also took sixth place in the ranking of the world’s largest copper companies by market capitalisation. The American research firm Bullfincher from Colorado, USA, presented a ranking of the largest global companies by this criterion. The highest position among copper producers is held by Southern Copper with a market capitalisation of $158.40 billion, followed by Freeport‑McMoRan ($94.91 billion), Antofagasta ($54.79 billion), Lundin Mining ($25.40 billion), First Quantum Minerals ($21.80 billion) and KGHM ($20.0 billion).
Fot. KGHM
