Boliden AB - History

History

On 10 December 1924, a sensational ore deposit was discovered at Fågelmyran, just over 30 km northwest of Skellefteå. Test drilling revealed what was then Europe’s richest ore. The first Boliden ore was extracted in the spring of 1926 at what would become the Boliden mine – a mine that would prove, over the course of several decades, to be Europe’s biggest and richest gold mine. The deposit also included copper and large amounts of silver. The town of Boliden quickly grew up around the mine. The leading light in the development of the Boliden company was Oscar Falkman (1877–1961), who was the driving force behind the exploration work that began in the second decade of the 20th century, and which was accelerated due to the metal shortage that arose in the wake of World War I. Falkman continued in the role of Boliden’s President until 1941. Boliden AB was also part of the financier, Ivar Kreuger’s business empire until 1932. The Rönnskär smelter was built to process the Boliden ore, and commenced smelting operations in 1930. The world’s longest ore tramway, between Boliden’s mine in Kristineberg and Boliden became operational in 1943. The ore tramway was 96 km long and by the time it was shut down, 44 years later, it had transported 12 million tonnes of concentrate. Operations started at the Aitik mine, outside Gällivare, in 1968. This open pit mine would develop, over the years, into one of Europe’s biggest copper mines. During its first year of operations, it produced approximately 9,000 tonnes of copper, 160 kg of gold and 7 tonnes of silver.

The company grew during the first few years of the 1970s thanks to a joint venture with the German company, Preussag. This led to the expansion of Boliden’s lead smelting and refining capacity, and in 1976, Boliden launched the Kaldo furnace, which is a furnace for processing metals. 1976 also saw Boliden launch the first flash smelting furnace for lead, applying Kaldo technology, at Rönnskär.

In the mid-1980s, Boliden exported a total of 20,000 tonnes of metallic residues from the Rönnskär smelter to the Chilean company, PROMEL, for processing. Boliden paid PROMEL for processing work that was never carried out and the residues were, instead, stored on the outskirts of the town of Arica at a site which was converted to a low-cost residential area in the 1990s on the instructions of the social services. The residents were unaware of the waste’s presence and as a result, many people came to harm. In the autumn of 2009, the Chilean government announced that the 7,000 or so residents of the area would be evacuated. The waste was exported before the Basel Convention prohibiting the export of environmentally hazardous waste came into force.

At the end of 1987, the Trelleborg industrial conglomerate acquired a controlling interest in Boliden. The same year also saw Boliden acquire the Spanish company, Apirsa S.L., which extracted zinc from the Aznalcóllar open pit mine, 45 km west of Seville. Trelleborg launched a major restructuring of the Boliden Group in 1996, and the new company, Boliden Limited, was formed in Toronto. Two years later, Boliden Ltd. bought the Canadian company, Westmin.

On 25 April 1998, the tailings dam at Apirsa’s Los Frailes mine burst and 4.5 million cubic metres of tailings sand drained out into the nearby Guadiamar river, near Doñana National Park, causing the worst environmental accident in Spain so far. Extensive investigations revealed defects in both the dam’s original construction and in subsequent construction projects. The company reacted quickly to the situation and immediately began a comprehensive programme of reclamation work. In 2006, Boliden lost the demand against the companies that built the dam Aznalcóllar. The Spanish Supreme Court also confirmed that Boliden should pay 43,7 millions of euros to the Spanish government. The recovery costs of Aznalcóllar are estimated to be 240 million of euro, Boliden has not assumed any part of these costs.

In 1999, Boliden implemented a restructuring programme at Group level and the Boliden share was listed on the Stockholm stock exchange.

In 2001, Boliden’s head office was relocated back to Sweden.

In late 2003, Boliden bought smelters and a mine from the Finnish steel group, Outokumpu, and as a result, the Kokkola and Harjavalta/Pori smelters in Finland and the Odda smelter in Norway became part of Boliden. The purchase also included the Tara zinc mine in Ireland.