In 1957, Polish geologists, led by Dr. Jan Wyzykowski, discovered the huge, deep, sedimentary copper deposit of the Legnica-Glogow copper basin in southwestern Poland. By 1961, Kombinat Gorniczo-Hutniczy Miedzi (KGHM), The Copper Mining and Smelting Group, was formed under the Ministry of Metallurgy and Machine Industry to coordinate industrial development of the deposit. Continuous work since then has built an integrated industry that produced 378,000 mt of electrolytic copper in 1985. Poland's geographic location allows low-cost transport of copper to western Europe. It has become an important supplier to West German companies, which took 80,000-90,000 mt last year, and to companies in Belgium and France, which are the next two largest customers. In less than 30 years, Poland's copper industry has grown from a very modest beginning to rank just behind Peru among major producing countries.
