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, but the production of lead, gold and silver also makes a substantial contribution to its revenues. It is also a significant producer of sulfuric acid as a refining byproduct.
Operations
+MineMain metalsAcquiredRenström mineZinc, copper1952GarpenbergZinc, lead1957Kankberg mineTellurium, gold1960sAitik mineCopper1968Tara MineZinc, lead2003Kevitsa mineCopper, nickel2016Neves-CorvoZinc, copper2025ZinkgruvanZinc, lead2025
Mines Boliden is active in mining, refining, smelting and chemical production. As of 2025, Boliden operates seven mines, all of them in Europe (see table). Its mining activities are primarily in zinc and copper, as well as some lead, gold, silver. The mines are geographically concentrated in Sweden, but the company also operates a mine each in Finland, Ireland and Portugal. Its most productive mine in 2024 was Aitik producing 41 million tonnes of ore, followed by Kevitsa, with 10 million tonnes. Aitik is Europe's fourth-biggest copper mine despite having relatively low-grade ore (0.2–0.4%); it owes its productivity to its large economies of scale and high degree of automation.
Boliden spent SEK 929 million SEK (US$88 million) on exploration in 2024.
Smelters Boliden also owns and operates five smelters. Rönnskär, Boliden's oldest smelter, is located in northern Sweden and produces primarily copper and sulfuric acid, as well as some lead and zinc. Norzinc, a smelter in Odda, Norway, produces zinc and sulfuric acid. Bergsöe, a lead smelter in the southern Swedish town of Landskrona, is a lead-acid battery recycling plant. A smelter in Harjavalta in southern Finland chiefly produces copper and nickel, as well as minor amounts of gold, silver and palladium. A smelter in Kokkola, northern Finland, produces zinc.
Kokkola is specialized in the production of "special high-grade zinc", which is used in galvanization. The Odda zinc smelter, which produces zinc for the steel industry and aluminium fluoride for Norway's aluminium industry, is located on the west coast of Norway. The Rönnskär copper smelter also produces metals from electronic scrap and other secondary materials. The Harjavalta copper smelter, located on the west coast of Finland, produces copper cathodes that are mainly sold to manufacturers of semi-finished goods. Bergsöe is one of Europe's four biggest players in the lead recycling industry. Approximately 60% of the plant's lead production is sold to the European battery industry, with the remainder used in the manufacture of roofing sheet.
Only around 40–50% of the raw materials Boliden refines at its smelters are from its own mines. Most of the remainder is sourced from other mining companies. 5–10% of its raw copper, nickel and zinc, as well as 60% of its raw lead feed, is from recycling scrap.
History
1920s: founding
In 1918, a mining company called Centralgruppens Emissionsbolag, which was majority-owned by Skaninaviska Banken, began prospecting in the area surrounding Skellefteå. In 1924, a gold ore deposit was discovered near the village of Bjurliden, around 30 km from Skellefteå. It was found to contain 18 grams of gold per ton, making it Europe's richest ore at the time. It also contained significant amounts of silver and copper.
In the mid-1920s, the company went bankrupt. Its main shareholder Skaninaviska Banken liquidated and restructured it into two separate companies, retaining majority ownership of both: Skellefteå gruv AB and Västerbottens gruv AB. Oscar Falkman, a venture capitalist who had led Emissionsbolag's prospecting operations since 1918, became the leader of both companies. Financier Ivar Kreuger bought majority shares in both companies in 1929 for 58 million SEK ( billion SEK today, or 183 million EUR) and two years later consolidated them into one, which became the modern entity Boliden. Falkman became its first CEO, ultimately serving for 12 years.
1930s–1940s: restructuring and expansion In 1932, Kreuger, who was heavily indebted and facing bankruptcy, died of suicide. The Swedish government passed a law limiting foreign ownership of Swedish companies active in resource extraction. The law, dubbed Lex Boliden by the press, remained on the books until the 1990s. Ultimately, Kreuger's stake in Boliden passed back to Skandinaviska Banken, which had provided most of the money for his purchase of the mine. The bank remained the owners of the company until 1952, when the company shares were publicly listed.
Over the next few years, the town of Boliden grew quickly around the mine.
Smelting operations In 1930, Boliden commissioned a smelter in the coastal town of Skelleftehamn to process the Boliden ore. The site saw significant expansion in the rest of the 20th century and is today part of the company's Rönnskär factory. In the 1940s, Boliden began producing purified lead, silver and arsenic there. In 1952, the company began to produce sulphuric acid from its own sulphur dioxide emissions. In 1970, a dedicated refinery was built to concentrate and purify the sulphur dioxide to increase the recovery rate. Boliden had a near-monopoly on sulphuric acid in Sweden at that time.
Diversification beyond gold Responding to demand created by the war economies of World War II, Boliden began investing in the extraction and processing of copper, as well as some lead and nickel. The company commissioned the Laver copper mine in 1936, which was only operational for ten years. The following year, Boliden also bought a significant amount of land near Kristineberg from local prospector and miner Johan Alfred Hultdin for 50,000 SEK (1.9 million SEK today, or 170,000 EUR). The company quickly developed the site and commissioned mining operations in 1940. In 1943, the company began operating a 96-kilometre aerial tramway between Kristineberg and Boliden for the transportation of ore. In 1943, Boliden opened a lead mine in Laisvall that was active until 2001.
1950s–1980: zinc and lead Boliden began expanding its lead production and also investing in zinc, which together made up the majority of the company's metal output by the 1960s. In 1957, Boliden acquired the company Zinkgruvor AB, taking over its mines in the Bergslagen region, including a zinc and silver mine at Garpenberg and Långfallsgruvan, a zinc mine near Saxberget. Boliden opened the Aitik mine, an open pit mine copper mine, near Gällivare in 1968. The company also continued producing gold, as well as silver, arsenic, selenium, nickel sulphate, zinc, and sulphuric acid.
In the 1960s, Boliden began to develop processes to refine complex metal mixtures, critical for recycling industrial scrap. The company was one of the key developers of the Kaldo furnace to treat lead-containing copper.
In 1967, the original Boliden mine was closed down. In 1973, Boliden acquired half of the lead mining operations of the German company Preussag (today TUI Group). Boliden aimed to expand its lead smelting and refining capacity, as well as facilitate the sale of its lead products. The deal also marked Boliden's first major entry into markets outside of Sweden. In 1976, Boliden launched a Kaldo type furnace, for processing metals. 1976 also saw Boliden launch the first flash smelting furnace for lead, applying Kaldo technology, at Rönnskär.
In 1979, Boliden acquired Paul Bergsöe & Son, a Danish smelting company with operations in Landskrona, which is today primarily a lead-acid battery recycler.
1980–1986: diversification and acquisition by Trelleborg By 1980, Boliden was producing around 11 million tonnes of ore per year from 16 mines in central and northern Sweden. Almost all of it was refined at the Rönnskär (Sweden) and Odda (Norway). Seeking to diversify its operations, the company expanded aggressively over five years, investing in downstream activities like gallium arsenide production and construction materials. It also set up its own materials trading division and, in 1986, purchased the appliance wholesaler Ahlsell for 1 billion SEK (2.7 billion SEK, or 244 million EUR, in 2025). The acquisition made Boliden one of Sweden's largest companies, with over 15,000 employees.
However, by 1985, low international metal prices had severely cut into the company's profits, depressing its share price to the point that it became a target for a takeover. In 1986, the polymer manufacturer Trelleborg acquired a controlling interest in Boliden.
1987–1995: streamlining and international expansion
Trelleborg, Boliden's majority shareholder from 1986 to 1996, initiated a major restructuring of the Boliden Group to refocus the company on its core strengths: mining, mineral refining, and chemicals. A number of unrelated or loss-making subsidiaries totaling over 6,000 employees were sold off, including large parts of the recently purchased Ahlsell, several electronics and household appliance companies, a number of trading companies, and a healthcare provider. The money raised through these divestments were reinvested to expand Boliden's mining operations. In particular, Trelleborg aimed to expand Boliden's international footprint, believing that Sweden had become less competitive as a manufacturing location due to high taxes, stricter environmental laws, and Sweden's lack of membership in the European Economic Community (a single market that later grew into the European Union).