Boliden AB

Boliden AB (stylized as Boliden) is a Swedish multinational metals, mining, and smelting company headquartered in Stockholm. The company produces zinc, copper, lead, nickel, silver, and gold, with operations in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Portugal, and Ireland. Founded in the 1920s and named after the Boliden mine, a now-defunct gold mine 30 km northwest of the Swedish town of Skellefteå, Boliden AB began as a gold mining company. Over the following decades, it expanded into copper, silver and nickel mining, as well as smelting. In the 1970s, following a period of high metals prices, the company diversified aggressively, purchasing appliance manufacturers, wholesalers and trading companies. In 1985, it was acquired by Trelleborg, a polymer manufacturer, which refocused it back on mining while also expanding overseas. In 1998, Trelleborg moved Boliden's headquarters to Toronto, Canada and sold Boliden again on the stock market. However, Boliden's share price collapsed over the next four years, due to a combination of low metal prices and a dam failure at one of its mines in Spain that led to an environmental disaster. In 2002, it moved its headquarters back to Sweden, sold off its non-European assets and regained profitability. Boliden owns and operates Europe's biggest zinc mine at Tara in Ireland (acquired in 2004). Boliden also owns Garpenberg, a zinc-lead mine and Sweden's oldest mine still in operation. The mineral-rich Skellefte field lies within the Boliden Area, where almost 30 mines have been opened since production began in the 1920s and where Boliden currently operates the Renström and Kristineberg underground mines and the Maurliden open pit mine. Boliden also owns and operates the Aitik copper mine. Boliden refines both metal concentrate and scrap waste at its smelters in Sweden, Finland and Norway to produce base metals and precious metals. Its main metals are zinc and copper,...