KGHM Vice President: the company may sell more small mines

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The vice president of KGHM said Poland's KGHM is likely to sell more smaller projects after selling two US mines because it is bidding to focus on larger mines.

The company is one of the world's largest producers of copper and silver and plans to sell the Carlotta mine in the United States and the Franka mine in Chile.

"there is a process that may be completed soon," said Pawel Gruza, vice president in charge of overseas assets. "in the near future, this may be in a few months, the second may take longer, and I think it may be next year."

"this process [asset sales] will continue and may be extended, and no decision has been made to sell more assets, but the size of some mines is not in line with KGHM's ambitions. We should focus on large and medium-sized projects. " He added.

Gruza said it had no plans to sell the Robinson mine in the US or Sierra Gorda in Chile. "there is always an option to sell this project, but we still see the optimization potential of Sierra Gorda. In other words, we see an opportunity to further increase the value of this investment on KGHM's books."

In October, Japan's Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd. and Sumitomo Commercial Co., Ltd. agreed to sell their shares in Sierra Gorda to Australian mining company South32 Ltd.

Gruza also said, "I do not believe that there will be a major change in the development plan of, Sierra Gorda only with new investors."