Koç Ticaret A.Ş. (Koçtaş) was one of the largest companies in the construction iron rebar trade in Turkey in the 1950s. During that period, imports covered the requirements for construction iron rebars. However, after 1953, importing finished iron products was limited because of increasing quotas on iron imports and of long waiting periods, even up to a year, for money transfers, resulting from foreign currency restrictions. Instead of direct imports, a system known as temporary exports was adopted. That is, product imports in return for iron ore exports. Consequently, Koçtaş needed to start iron ore mining in order to continue its iron sales.

Moreover, in 1955 we established a special partnership between our group companies Tetico Teknik Ticaret Ltd. Sti. and Koçtas for mining and exporting iron ore in return for importing finished iron products into Turkey, allocating 500,000 TL to fund this business. Furthermore, a partner holding a mine site license was looked for. As a result, we acquired Aram Agasyan's Mintex, whose iron ore sites are located in Cetinkaya and Otlukilise in Sivas province.

The partnership between Koçtas and Tetico, capitalized at 500,000 TL, was registered as Demir Limited Company on February 26, 1957 in Ankara.

The founding partners and the share distribution were as follows:

At the General Shareholders Assembly on February 19, 1958, the company’s name was changed to Demir Export Ltd. Sti.

After 1960, operating under the temporary exports system and importing finished products were suspended. Moreover, we achieved 80,000 tons iron ore sales for the first time under a specific agreement signed with Eregli Demir Çelik Fabrikaları T.A.Ş. (Erdemir), which started operations in 1962. This first concluded agreement was an important milestone in the history of Demir Export A.Ş. In fact, in July 1963, after this first trial, we signed off separate agreements for the Cetinkaya and Otlukilise iron sites to produce a total of 2,115,000 metric tons over a rather long seven-year period.

In the mining industry, a new area of business, easily entered, was contracting works, depending on the company’s available fleet. For this purpose, we entered this business for the first time with 500,000 m³ of stripping work at the Divrigi A Kafa iron ore mine of T. Demir Çelik Isletmeleri (Iron and Steel Enterprises of Turkey) in 1969. In the following years, the company increased its annual capacity up to 1,500,000 m³ of earth moving.

The company started mining operations in base metals such as lead, zinc, and copper upon acquiring Giresun, Tirebolu, Harsit, Koprubasi zinc-lead mine site in 1972 but terminated these operations due to the depletion of mineable reserves in 1994. However, the company began zinc-lead mining in Harköy and copper mining in Killik and Lahanos under royalty agreements with Karadeniz Bakır İşletmeleri A.Ş. , which owned a number of operating tenements in the eastern Black Sea region. Harköy and Killik were then subsequently shut down due to the depletion of mineable reserves. The production activities at Lahanos still continueds today.

In 1978 and 1979, our company’s mining licenses were transferred to T. Demir Çelik İşletmeleri (Turkey Iron & Steel Works), expropriated under the Nationalization Law No. 2172 and managed by Erdemir. Our company started operating at these sites as a contractor under two-year agreements. Later on, these sites were returned back to our company.

Apparently, one of the most important milestones in our history was undertaking a contract for coal (lignite) production for the Kangal Thermal Power Plant. Within the scope of the privatization, the coal requirements for the Kangal Thermal Power Plant were supplied by our company under an agreement signed with TEAS (TEK) on May 4, 1989. The duration of the work, was agreed to extend to a minimum of six years following the first four years and later to extend it four years each time. The agreement is still operative today.

The company's efforts to expand overseas resulted in business opportunities in the United Arab Emirates in 2003. We started production activities by opening aggregate quarries, one in the Ras-Al Khaimah Emirate and another in the Fujairah Emirate. Later on, we terminated our Fujairah Quarry business by selling the quarry and associated plants to Fujairah Bulk Shipping LLC in 2008. Our quarry in the Ras-Al Khaimah Emirate, still operated today.

We produce copper concentrate at the Lahanos underground mine and floatation plant in the Espiye district of Giresun province. The mine operations started in 1992 but was suspended between 1997 and 2006 due to market recession and low metal prices. However, production restarted in 2006 as prices went up again.

Annual production capacity is 15,000 tons of concentrate per year. We have produced 70,000 tons of concentrate so far.

which were awarded to Demir Export previously, our company successfully acquired the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System Certificate. Within the same year, Demir Export implemented Integrated Management System.

After the discovery, drilling focused on outlining the seams, and after completion of over 10,000m of core drilling, more than 100M tons of lignite coal is reported.