Bogdanka’s CEO Krzysztof Szlaga declares, that in the following years the mine will keep the steam coal production at a current level of 8-9m Mt. Until now Bogdanka was using the geographical advantage over Silesian producer in sales to Enea’s Kozienice power plant and Energa’s Ostroleka. Until now.
Polishcoaldaily was invited to one of the oldest Polish coal industry events: 30th Energy Conference by Mineral and Energy Economy Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, which will take place 9-12th October in Zakopane (WDW Koscielisko).
This week in Trybuna Gornicza, Polishcoaldaily’s Editor writes about prices trends on international coal markets, with special emphasis on Pacific market, where great floods in Australia might soon cause the same situation that we’ve all experienced in 2011.
For some time now Ministry of Energy is trying to find a solution to decrease Russian coal export to Poland. As the duty tax is not an option, ME is now looking for some more sophisticated methods to stop the Russians and play along with EU environmental policies.
Katowicki Holding Weglowy already sold 100% of this year’s production and 2/3 of coal that will be produced next year. Company believes, that with increasing level of international prices, in 2017 sales prices will catch up with production costs (at the moment there is 1 PLN/GJ gap between them).
Polishcoaldaily’s Editor short comment for INN:Poland on the new idea by Ministry of Environment of creating new police-like service, that will pursue gangs involved in illegal ninja-mining (mostly coal, but also amber and other commodities), which each year costs State Treasure 1bn PLN. Geological Guard (that how its called) will employ 20-40 rangers with 25m PLN/year budget.
Not only international coal prices are rising, but in the wake of them also stock value of Polish hard coal producers listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange: Jastrzebska Spolka Weglowa and Lubelski Wegiel Bogdanka. Quick look on the WSE listing in last 3 months.
Pretty busy with saving Polish coal mining industry recently, Weglokoks finally had some time to go back and re-think their strategy on coal export – the core business of the company. With 3m Mt of hard coal exported in first 8 months of 2016, Weglokoks managed to complete 70% of annual plan and now is convinced, that by the end of the year will export 4m Mt.
In the era when private world banking is more concerned about CSR and political corectness than making money, mining investments are dependant on state’s funds. What if though there would be a state owned bank (like UK’s GIB) that would gather cash from the market and then locate the money in coal projects?
Ukrainian DTEK ordered 120k Mt of hard coal. 50k of coking coal from Poland and 70k of anthracite from South Africa. Ukraine import annually 7.7m Mt of coal (mainly from Russia, but also from US and Australia), so it’s just a small delivery (120k Mt of coal is burned in Ukraine every day).
Last Monday Polish MPs decided to increase public aid for Polish coal mining sector from 3 to 7bn PLN in the following years. To those who want to protest that this is outrageous and unacceptable expenditure, please keep in mind that this amount is the exactly the same what the industry transfer to the budget each year in taxes.
In second quarter 2016 not only price decreased MOM, but also volume of traded coal (6,403k Mt), which was lowest since Q2 2013. Also quality of the coal went down: calorific value of steam coal traded in Q2 2016 was 21.17 GJ/Mt – lowest result since Q4 2013.
In this week’s Point of view comment by Polishcoaldaily Editor few words on EDF exodus from Poland: reasons behind the decission of leaving Polish market after 17 years, who is interested in taking over their power plants and heat plants and what is Polish government doing to stop them.
Dziennik Gazeta Prawna (Daily Legal Newspaper) published on Monday key points of the Road Map for Polish hard coal mining sector, created in high discretion in Ministry of Energy. According to it, Polish mines will stay state-owned, but will work hard to become more competitive on the European and international markets.
As much as unions would like that, Tauron is not interested in taking over Krupinski mine. Company will still base their power production on coal, but they do not find any use of a mine that produces coal too strong for energy production but too weak for metallurgy (apart from all the other factors behind the decision of moving Krupinski to SRK).
