Mining of Aggregates in Poland – Opportunities and Threats

Abstract

This article presents the development of extraction and production of natural aggregates in Poland on the background of the formation of aggregates production in selected countries of the European Union. Aggregates are widely used in many industrial sectors. They are the world's largest group of exploited minerals, and their global production stands at more than 20 billion Mg per year, of which Europe stands at 3,7 billion Mg/year. In Poland, the production of aggregates stands at over 0,23 billion Mg/year (2015 year), and since the 90s of the twentieth century it grew almost four times. In this article attention was paid to the role and importance of natural aggregates in the national economics. Changes in the regional and qualitative extraction of sand and gravel aggregates in Poland were characterized. In period 2011–2015 extraction of natural aggregates has mostly decreased – in four provinces even more than 50%. The voivodeships remain generally on fixed positions in the ranking when it comes to the production of crushed stones aggregates. An important part of the article is description of the opportunities and threats of aggregates production in Poland, which threatened not so drastic decrease in demand for aggregates like in the other countries of Europe. This is due to the possibility of using EU funds in the coming years, however and after this period forecasts are showing still considerable demand resulting from the need to: expansion and enlargement of areas of fast roads and bypasses of major cities, construction of energy investments and the need for housing constructions, which in Poland are definitely not enough. However, there are also difficulties resulting even with the deterioration in the quality of deposits of natural aggregates, or an increase in the depth of exploitation and the need for excavate of deposits difficult to mine that require changes in production technology, which results into an increase in production costs. An important element is the lack of ability to modify machine parks by mines with high production capacity, in which the aggregate trade at low prices is sufficient just to cover the variable costs of production.