The production of glass in Poland, especially of container and flat glass, has constantly risen for at least 30 years. New investments in this sector, which have recently been completed or are currently in progress, create optimistic prospects for further development of this industry, whose total annual production capacities in the next few years is expected to exceed 4 million tons. This will result in increasing demand for basic glass-making raw materials, especially high-quality silica sand (glass sand), which can be satisfied almost entirely from domestic sources. Poland as a country with a considerable resource base of these mineral raw materials, has noted a constantly growing production level that currently reaches approximately 2.8 million tons per year. This paper aims to characterize and interpret the development trends in the Polish glass industry in an international context, as well as the resulting increase in demand for glass sand. In this context, an attempt was made to answer questions concerning the sufficiency of the Polish domestic resource base for the production of glass sand. For this study, the leading recent international and Polish analyses, related to glass industry development, the resource base of glass silica sand, and the management of these types of sand, were taken into account, and were complemented by official statistical data and surveying of domestic glass producers. The performed analysis showed that when taking into account the available glass sand resources in developed deposits in Poland, it is possible to continue production at the existing or a slightly increasing level for another 20–25 years. Based on a more comprehensive perspective, however, it would be a good approach to continue providing access to those parts of currently extracted deposits of silica sand and sandstone that are now located outside of the existing exploitation licenses, as well as enabling the development of some satellite deposits in the Tomaszów Basin, which may prove difficult due to environmental factors.

Limestone flour is used in a variety of industrial sectors such as power and heat generation, glass-making, paper-making, the construction industry and construction materials manufacturing, the production of agriculture, plastics and rubber goods, as well as coal mining, and environmental protection. This paper aims to characterize and interpret the limestone flour supply and demand trends in the main applications in Poland in the last decade. In order to track the changes of domestic consumption for this commodity, its major users have been surveyed along with analyses of data from the Statistics Poland (GUS). The results showed that during 2009–2018 the coal-fired power plants became the biggest customer of limestone flour utilized as a sorbent in the wet flue gas desulfurization method (FGD). This method has been implemented in the vast majority of Polish power plants. It is estimated that in the last decade the total annual production capacity of limestone flour at the milling plants in Poland increased by 1.5 million tons, to around 6.0 million tons. In the forthcoming years, this is expected to continue to increase despite EU restrictions on fossil fuel use (especially hard coal and lignite). Other promising areas of future growth are: for limestone flour of medium quality—the construction materials manufacturing and the construction industry itself, for limestone flour of the highest quality—the glass industry, while for fine-grained limestone flour of high-quality—the plastics and rubber industries. In terms of resource security, it is worth noting that Poland is a country rich in limestone deposits. However, only some of them, that is, limestone rock varieties of the Jurassic and Devonian ages from the Kielce vicinity in central Poland are suitable for the production of high-quality limestone flour for the needs of the mentioned industries. The paper analyses the potential of the limestone flour production from the available limestone rock deposits with respect to the current and future needs of the domestic market in Poland.

This paper presents the results of analyses of structure, volume and trends of demand for selected major critical raw materials (CRMs) suitable for the EU’s photovoltaic industry (PV). In order to achieve the EU’s goals in terms of the reduction of greenhouse gas emission and climate neutrality by 2050, the deployment of energy from renewable sources is of key importance. As a result, a substantial development of wind and solar technologies is expected. It is forecasted that increasing the production of PV panels will cause a significant growth in the demand for raw materials, including CRMs. Among these, silicon metal, gallium, germanium and indium were selected for detailed analyses while boron and phosphorus were excluded owing to small quantities being utilized in the PV sector. The estimated volume of the apparent consumption in the EU does not usually exceed 0.1 million tonnes for high purity silicon metal, a hundred tonnes for gallium and indium and several dozen tonnes for germanium. The major net-importers of analyzed CRMs were Germany, France, Spain, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Italy. The largest quantities of these metals have been utilized by Germany, France, Belgium, Slovakia and Italy. The PV applications constitute a marginal share in the total volume of analyzed metal total end-uses in the EU (10% for silicon metal, 5% for gallium, 13% for germanium and 9% for indium). As a result, there is a number of applications that compete for the same raw materials, particularly including the production of electronic equipment. The volume of the future demand for individual CRMs in PV sector will be strictly related to trends in the development of PV-panel production with crystalline silicon technology currently strongly dominating the global market.

An assessment of current demand for mineral raw materials in the domestic economy as well possibilities to satisfy the needs of the industry has been performed for the period 2011-2015 on the basis of estimated values and volumes of their consumption, as well as indices of the share of importation in the consumption and percentage of production sold abroad. Domestically consumed mineral raw materials have been assigned to groups corresponding to the main way of their usage, distinguishing:fuels, metallic, ceramic, chemical, construction, and others. Complementary to the presented demand- supply relations are trade balances of selected commodities. Analysis of available statistical data showed that the demand for substantial number of mineral raw materials in Poland has been met by imports and this probably will be continued in future. The reasons for Poland’s sustained import dependency of mineral raw materials is the lack or insufficient reserve base, as well as low quality of raw materials available from deposits occurring in the country. The exceptions are construction raw materials and some ceramic ones, as well minerals exported in significant qualities (e.g.: refined copper, silver, zinc, sulphur, lead raw materials, or selenium), for which it can be stated that their domestic supplies may fully satisfy the demand of the national economy. On the other hand, the scale of utilization of such fuels as hard coal and lignite, which represent very significant item in Poland’s total energy mix, may be greatly reduced in the light of EU directives aimed at restricted use of these fossil fuels. The possible alternative is development of the use of renewable energy sources, while in the case of metals - improved recycling of scrap and metal-bearing wastes.

This work is an attempt to determine the scale of threats to the mineral security of Poland in the area of non-energy raw materials resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In particular, it aims to identify those industries whose proper functioning may be threatened in the face of the limited supply of raw materials from three directions – Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. An element of the analysis was also the indication of possible alternative sources of the supply of these raw materials. For this purpose, the directions of imports to Poland of about 140 non-energy raw materials in 2011–2020 were analyzed. As a result, about thirty raw materials were selected, the supplies of which came from, among others, at least one of the three mentioned countries. To determine the raw materials for which the disruption of supplies may have the most serious impact on the functioning of the Polish economy, the following criteria were adopted: a minimum 20% share of these countries in covering the domestic demand in 2020, and a minimum value of these imports in 2020 of 20 million PLN. These threshold conditions were met by eight raw materials: iron ores and concentrates, carbon black, potash, aluminum, ferroalloys, nickel, ball clays and refractory clays, and synthetic corundum. Among these, the need to change the directions of supplies applies to the greatest extent to iron ores and concentrates, aluminum and nickel, while in the case of non-metallic raw materials, it applies most to ball clays and refractory clays and potassium salts. These are among the most important raw materials necessary for the proper functioning of the national economy, but their shortage or disruptions in the continuity of their supplies pose a real threat to the mineral security of Poland.