Active copper mine shaft at Zakłady Górnicze Lubin, long serving as a multi-function personnel, materials and ventilation shaft in KGHM's oldest mine.
Szyb L-IV is one of the operational shafts of Zakłady Górnicze Lubin, Poland's oldest copper mine and a division of KGHM Polska Miedź S.A., located on the northern edge of Lubin in Lower Silesia. The Lubin mine was established following the discovery of copper ore on 23 March 1957 by a geological team led by Jan Wyżykowski of the State Geological Institute. Construction of the mine began on 1 January 1960.
L-IV formed part of the mine's original shaft complement and served multiple functions over its working life, including the exhaust ventilation of underground workings, the transport of personnel and materials to and from the ore body, and the supply of hydraulic backfill. As the mine's western extraction zones neared depletion and operations shifted northward, planning studies from the early 2010s identified L-IV as a candidate for eventual decommissioning following the upgrading of shaft L-VI. The confirmed current operational status of L-IV has not been precisely established in the consulted sources.
Zakłady Górnicze Lubin was established as a state enterprise on 1 January 1960 following the discovery of polymetallic copper ore in the Lubin-Małomice deposit on 23 March 1957. The discovery was made by a geological survey team led by Jan Wyżykowski of the Państwowy Instytut Geologiczny in Warsaw, during exploratory drilling near Sieroszowice. Construction of the mine infrastructure, including the sinking of its first shafts, began immediately.
The Wschodni shaft — later renamed Bolesław — was the first sunk and was the first shaft of what would become KGHM Polska Miedź S.A. In July 1961, during the sinking of shaft L-III, floodwater inundated the workings; a year later, quicksand broke into the main shafts L-I and L-II, requiring emergency intervention. These events demonstrated the severity of the water hazard and shaped permanent protective measures, including the construction of heavy steel-reinforced concrete flood barriers near L-III's pit bottom that survive to the present day. The mine reached its first ore on 20 March 1963 and was formally commissioned for preliminary exploitation on 19 July 1968, when it reached 25% of its target production capacity.
Full capacity of 4.5 million tonnes of ore per year was achieved in 1972, rising to 7.6 million tonnes following expansion in 1973. Szyb L-IV formed part of the mine's multi-shaft system, which by the late twentieth century comprised seven shafts with depths ranging from 494 to 963 metres. According to mine records, L-IV served simultaneously as an exhaust ventilation shaft, a personnel and materials shaft, and a hydraulic backfill shaft — a combination of functions that placed it among the most heavily utilised in the complex.
L-IV and the adjacent shaft L-V provided the primary descent routes for miners working in the western and south-western extraction zones. As the mine's productive areas progressively shifted northward and the resources of the western zones approached exhaustion, journey times from these shafts to active working faces grew substantially. Studies conducted from around 2010 and formalised in a paper published in CUPRUM in 2013 assessed the economic consequences of this trend and examined the feasibility of converting shaft L-VI — at the time serving only as an intake ventilation shaft — into a full personnel and materials shaft.
The analysis concluded that such a conversion would allow the cessation of personnel and materials functions at L-IV and L-V, and that L-IV would subsequently be eligible for decommissioning. A contract for the modernisation of L-VI was signed with Przedsiębiorstwo Budowy Kopalń PeBeKa S.A. in 2015, and the upgraded L-VI was brought into service in October 2019. Planning documents from the mid-2010s identified L-IV's decommissioning as a consequence of this transition, though the precise timing and confirmed execution of any closure works at L-IV have not been established in the consulted sources.
The mine as a whole continues to operate under KGHM Polska Miedź S.A., working the Lubin-Małomice deposit over an area of 158 km² at depths between 550 and 1,006 metres, with annual ore output of approximately 8.6 million tonnes.