About us
KMEZ is one of the oldest metallurgical smelters in the Urals, founded in 1757 by the legendary Nikita Demidov, a representative of the famous industrial dynasty of the Demidovs.
Initially, the plant was an iron-making plant, producing iron of the brand «Two sables» — were famous both in Russia and abroad.
An important milestone in the history of the plant was 1908, when it was acquired by the Scottish millionaire entrepreneur Leslie Urquhart. He converted the iron-making production into a copper electrolytic one. As a result, the Kyshtym plant was the first ever in Russia to start copper electrolysis. In addition, the Scottish entrepreneur introduced at the Urals plant production of precious metals — gold and silver — from the sludge remaining after copper electrolysis.
Throughout 20th century, the Kyshtym plant retained its position as a strong metallurgical smelter. In 2004, KMEZ became part of the Russian Copper Company (RCC) holding.
Today the main activity of the KMEZ plant is fire and electrolytic refining of blister copper, processing of copper scrap and copper waste containing precious metals, production of copper cathodes of the M00k grade and copper rod of class A, as well as precious metals production.
Currently, at the plant the one and only electrodeposited copper foil workshop in Russia is under construction and a full-scale technical modernisation of the copper electrolysis workshop is underway, which will increase the output of cathodes to 230,000 per year.
Facts and figures
- Plant established in 1757
- Start of copper production in 1908
- Number of employees in 2020 — more than 1200 people
- Production volume of cathodes in 2020 – 135,764 tons
- Total investment in 2020 – more than 55 millions of US dollars
COMPANY PROFILE:
Russian Copper Company — is a vertically integrated industrial holding specializing in extraction and processing of copper ore, in production and sale of copper products and precious metals in ingots.
RCC was founded in 2004. The company includes 13 factories in the Novgorod, Orenburg, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions of Russia and in the Aktobe region of the Republic of Kazakhstan. There are three metallurgical plants, a hydrometallurgical plant, eight mining factories and a trading company among them.
Production capacity: up to 200 thousand tons of copper cathodes per year, up to 190 thousand tons of copper wire rod per year.