A deadly coal mining accident in February has pushed the company Grupo Mexico into an uncomfortable media spotlight.

But copper, not coal, is the company's cash cow. Pasta de Conchos, the site of the accident that killed 65 miners, is Grupo Mexico's only underground coal mine, while it has extensive copper mining operations in Mexico, Peru and the United States. It is usually ranked as the world's third-largest copper producer.

Significant increases in the price of copper last year helped push Grupo Mexico's total sales up 23 percent, from $4.2 billion to $5.2 billion, according to the company's annual report. The company, headquartered in Mexico City, also mines zinc, silver and gold.

It is run by one of Mexico's wealthiest families. The chief executive officer, German Larrea Mota-Velasco, took over after his father died in 1999.

The same year, the younger Mr. Larrea also helped engineer Grupo Mexico's acquisition of Asarco, an American mining company that once owned some of Mexico's most profitable mines.

"It was a case where the son buys the mother," said Juan Rebolledo, Grupo Mexico's vice president for international affairs. The $1.18 billion move gave Grupo Mexico copper mines in Arizona and in Peru's resource-rich Andes mountains.

At the time of the Pasta de Conchos accident, the company was in the midst of a significant expansion at the mine. Officials were planning to boost production from 250,000 to 1 million tons of coal a year.