The Ore Under Lower SilesiaNarrow moat

KGHM Polska Miedź (KGH) — moat facet

1,86 billion tonnes of ore at about 1,6% copper, permitted, developed and good for another forty to fifty years.

There is one genuinely irreplaceable thing in this company, and it is not the machinery. It is the rock.

What the Polish licences hold, 31 December 20251,86bn tof ore30,4m tof contained copper91 837 tof contained silver40-50 yrsof mining leftAbout 1,6% copper and 49 grams of silver a tonne, permitted and already developed
The one genuinely irreplaceable thing here is the rock - and no second Lower Silesian deposit exists.

The Lower Silesian copper deposit dips monoclinally from a few hundred metres below the surface to about 1,500, and at the end of 2025 KGHM's Polish licences held 1 858 259 thousand tonnes of ore containing 30 387 thousand tonnes of copper and 91 837 tonnes of silver1. That works out at roughly 1,6% copper and about 49 grams of silver a tonne2 — rich by the standards of the industry: KGHM's own Chilean open pit works ore averaging 0,39% copper3.

KGHM's own estimate is that the deposits will suffice for another forty to fifty years. Sixty years of mining have already taken more than one and a half billion tonnes of output out of the ground and produced 23 million tonnes of copper4; what is left is larger than what has been used.

The barrier here is not the geology alone but everything attached to it. The concessions are granted. Three mines are developed and connected. Shafts are sunk, including the GG-1 at Kwielice, at 1 348 metres the deepest mining shaft in Poland5. Ventilation, cooling, haulage and the concentrator plants that turn ore into some two million tonnes of concentrate a year at 23% copper content6 all exist. Of the group's 35 713 million złoty of non-current assets, 30 690 million sit in Poland7.

Nobody is going to reproduce that. Permitting a new deep copper mine in the European Union is a project measured in decades and referendums, and there is no second Lower Silesian deposit waiting for an applicant. In the narrow sense of a barrier to entry, this is about as high as barriers get.

What it is not is a claim on price. An orebody with forty years in it guarantees that KGHM will still be selling copper in 2065; it says nothing about what copper will fetch, and the sums that follow in the threats show how much of the value that leaves on somebody else's side of the table. The measure to watch is not the reserve number, which moves slowly and mostly with the copper price used to calculate it. It is the tonnes actually lifted: 570,9 thousand tonnes of electrolytic copper in 2025, against 586,0 in 20228.

Moat trajectory: Holding steady

1 858 259 thousand tonnes of ore at the end of 2025, forty to fifty years of it, and permits granted decades ago. Reserves of this kind do not improve or deteriorate quickly; they deplete slowly and get deeper.

The number that tests this moat
Reported
Geological resources and reserve life
1 858 259 thousand tonnes of ore; 40-50 years

The Polish licences hold 30 387 thousand tonnes of copper and 91 837 tonnes of silver, and KGHM's own estimate is that current deposits will suffice for another forty to fifty years. This is the company's most durable single fact. Watch it restated each year against production: forty-to-fifty becoming thirty-to-forty without a fall in output would mean the deposit is depleting faster than disclosed.

Source: KGHM - mining and enrichment ↗
Aspects of the moat
DIG DEEPER 01
Forty Years of Ore, Already Permitted
The concessions exist, the shafts are sunk, and the environmental argument was had decades ago.
DIG DEEPER 02
A Kilometre and a Half Down
Grade is what you have; depth is what it costs to use it, and KGHM works at 1 348 metres.
DIG DEEPER 03
Three Mines, Three Smelters, One Region
Ore never leaves the group between the face and the finished wire rod - and none of it leaves Lower Silesia either.
DIG DEEPER 04
Sixty Years and Twenty-Three Million Tonnes
More ore remains than has already been taken, which also means the accessible tonnes went first.
⚠ Threats to the moat
⚠ THREAT 01
Polish Copper Output Has Not Grown in Six Years
571 thousand tonnes against 592 in 2023, and 2026's growth came from buying other people's metal.
⚠ THREAT 02
Every Tonne Costs More to Reach
C1 has risen in every year since 2021, and more than half the EBITDA target goes back underground.
References
  1. ReportedThe Lower Silesian copper deposit dips monoclinally from a few hundred metres below the surface to about 1,500, and at the end of 2025 KGHM's Polish licences held 1 858 259 thousand tonnes of ore containing 30 387 thousand tonnes of copper...
    KGHM Polska Miedz - mining and enrichment (geological resources at 31 December 2025 of 1 858 259 thousand tonnes of ore containing 30 387 thousand tonnes of copper and 91 837 tonnes of silver; a deposit dipping from a few hundred metres to 1 500; the statement that current deposits will suffice for the next 40-50 years of mining activities; concentrator output of about two million tonnes of concentrate at 23% copper a year; and more than one and a half billion tonnes of output and 23 million tonnes of copper produced over sixty years) — 2025 · publ. 2026 · source ↗
  2. Moat Explorer calcThat works out at roughly 1,6% copper and about 49 grams of silver a tonne — rich by the standards of the industry: KGHM's own Chilean open pit works ore averaging 0,39% copper.
    Moat Explorer calculation - arithmetic on figures KGHM reports: ore grade (30 387 thousand tonnes of copper over 1 858 259 thousand tonnes of ore, and 91 837 tonnes of silver over the same), the by-product credit (52 201 less 17 415 złoty a tonne), the European share of parent sales (about 17 147m of 21 927m), copper and silver as a share of parent revenue (22 378m and 6 133m of 30 964m), the minerals extraction tax against parent net profit (4 693m over 1 946m), the dividend against trailing earnings (1,50 against 43,44 a share), and own concentrate as a share of refined output (183,6 of 291,5 thousand tonnes) — FY2023-H1 2026 · publ. September 2026 · source ↗
  3. Moat Explorer calcThat works out at roughly 1,6% copper and about 49 grams of silver a tonne — rich by the standards of the industry: KGHM's own Chilean open pit works ore averaging 0,39% copper.
    Moat Explorer calculation - arithmetic on figures KGHM reports: ore grade (30 387 thousand tonnes of copper over 1 858 259 thousand tonnes of ore, and 91 837 tonnes of silver over the same), the by-product credit (52 201 less 17 415 złoty a tonne), the European share of parent sales (about 17 147m of 21 927m), copper and silver as a share of parent revenue (22 378m and 6 133m of 30 964m), the minerals extraction tax against parent net profit (4 693m over 1 946m), the dividend against trailing earnings (1,50 against 43,44 a share), and own concentrate as a share of refined output (183,6 of 291,5 thousand tonnes) — FY2023-H1 2026 · publ. September 2026 · source ↗
  4. ReportedSixty years of mining have already taken more than one and a half billion tonnes of output out of the ground and produced 23 million tonnes of copper; what is left is larger than what has been used.
    KGHM Polska Miedz - mining and enrichment (geological resources at 31 December 2025 of 1 858 259 thousand tonnes of ore containing 30 387 thousand tonnes of copper and 91 837 tonnes of silver; a deposit dipping from a few hundred metres to 1 500; the statement that current deposits will suffice for the next 40-50 years of mining activities; concentrator output of about two million tonnes of concentrate at 23% copper a year; and more than one and a half billion tonnes of output and 23 million tonnes of copper produced over sixty years) — 2025 · publ. 2026 · source ↗
  5. ReportedShafts are sunk, including the GG-1 at Kwielice, at 1 348 metres the deepest mining shaft in Poland.
    KGHM press office - the GG-1 shaft at Kwielice, at 1 348 metres the deepest mining pit in Poland, connecting the Polkowice-Sieroszowice and Rudna mines — 2023 · publ. 30 June 2023 · source ↗
  6. ReportedVentilation, cooling, haulage and the concentrator plants that turn ore into some two million tonnes of concentrate a year at 23% copper content all exist.
    KGHM Polska Miedz - mining and enrichment (geological resources at 31 December 2025 of 1 858 259 thousand tonnes of ore containing 30 387 thousand tonnes of copper and 91 837 tonnes of silver; a deposit dipping from a few hundred metres to 1 500; the statement that current deposits will suffice for the next 40-50 years of mining activities; concentrator output of about two million tonnes of concentrate at 23% copper a year; and more than one and a half billion tonnes of output and 23 million tonnes of copper produced over sixty years) — 2025 · publ. 2026 · source ↗
  7. ReportedOf the group's 35 713 million złoty of non-current assets, 30 690 million sit in Poland.
    KGHM Polska Miedz S.A. Group consolidated financial statements for 2025 (group revenue of 36 366m złoty with the parent at 30 964m and KGHM INTERNATIONAL at 3 439m; parent copper revenue of 22 378m and silver revenue of 6 133m; minerals extraction tax of 4 693m against 3 865m in 2024 and 3 496m in 2023; employee benefits of 6 303m; purchased metal-bearing materials of 8 335m; parent net profit of 1 946m against a group profit of 3 688m; total assets of 58 240m, equity of 32 898m and involvement in the Sierra Gorda joint venture of 10 250m including 8 436m of loans) — FY2023-FY2025 · publ. 10 March 2026 · source ↗
  8. ReportedIt is the tonnes actually lifted: 570,9 thousand tonnes of electrolytic copper in 2025, against 586,0 in 2022.
    KGHM Polska Miedz S.A. Group - Management Board's report on activities in 2025, the production and unit-cost record (electrolytic copper of 570,9 thousand tonnes against 588,7 in 2024, 592,4 in 2023 and 560,4 in 2020; metallic silver of 1 323 tonnes against 1 403 in 2023; C1 payable copper production cost of 3,16 USD/lb for the Polish assets against 1,03 for KGHM INTERNATIONAL and 0,86 for Sierra Gorda; group payable copper of 710,0 thousand tonnes against 753,7 in 2021; wire rod and wire production of 279,9 thousand tonnes; and world mined silver production of about 25,3 thousand tonnes) — FY2018-FY2025 · publ. 10 March 2026 · source ↗
Sources
Generated September 24, 2026