From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
New Boliden is a Swedish mining and smelting company focusing on production of copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver. Following a series of acquisitions during the 1980s and 1990s the company acquired mining and smelting assets of the Finnish mining and smelting company Outokumpu in 2003. Outokumpu acquired the subsidiary Boliden Contech and Boliden's copper and zinc divisions. As a consequence of the deal, Outokumpu ended up controlling 49 percent of the Boliden shares.
The company has approximately 4,500 employees. The name comes from the Boliden mine, some 30 km northwest of the Swedish town of Skellefteå, where gold was found in 1924. It was once Europe's largest and richest gold mine, but since 1967 the mine is defunct.
-
In 1998, Boliden was responsible for a major ecological disaster in Spain, when a reservoir of toxic waste in the town of Aznalcóllar, owned by its subsidiary Boliden-Apirsa, broke and spilled its contents in the course of the Guadiamar river, which flows through the Doñana National Park. As of April 2008 (10 years after the disaster), Boliden has not paid any fine or compensation yet, despite a 2004 sentence by the Spanish Supreme Court which condemned Boliden-Apirsa to pay 45 millions euros .
The Aitik copper mine (a major mine within the company) was featured on a 2007 episode of the Discovery Channel series "Really Big Things".
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
