Grupa Azoty SA

WSE:ATT

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q4

[Joanna Barnas, executive]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is my privilege to welcome you to the results conference which will be to discuss the results of the companies in the Azoty Group in the Q4 of this year and 2021. And the speakers today will be Marek Wadowski, the Deputy President of the Azoty; Marek -- Hryniewicz, Deputy President and Manager of Azoty Pulawy; and Michal Siewierski, Deputy President of Azoty Police. Mr. President will join us distantly.

And we have also with us Grzegorz Kuberski, the Director of the Corporate Departments. And before I pass the floor to Mr. President, let me invite you to ask questions using our website -- conference website. Mr. Wadowski, please start the conference.

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Despite the fact that we have some challenges surrounding us and despite a large number of changes in the commodity markets and the products market, Azoty has created quite good financial results in 2021. It was possible with diversification of our operations. We maintain continuity of the operation process throughout 2021. It was particularly important in the last quarter of that year.

It is also good to mention that in terms of the fertilizers, we manage one of the lowest prices in the European Union. In 2021, we published the new strategy up to 2030, and this is the strategy of concentrated on environment. And this is the direction which is coherent with the EU requirements. And in 2021, we have been running our largest investments in Polimery Police. By the end of that year, it was completed in 83%, and now it is almost 90%.

Ladies and gentlemen, a very brief summary of our results, a significant increase in income. As I said, we have had quite significant changes in the surrounding also in the commodities markets, but also in the products market. And the increase of income was mainly due to the increasing cost, which were also translated into the prices of our products. It is also good to remember that we had a significant increase in the EBITDA and EBITDA comparable in 2021 increased versus by 85%. And we maintained the EBITDA margin with the financial results, not significant events, one-off events, was right of in the plastics, which decreased the net result by PLN 290 million.

And in Q4 alone, the trend was very similar, significant increase in incomes, increase in EBITDA. And in the Q4, though significantly affected the results, as I said before, the result achieved in 2021 was possible with diversification of our operations. And this is the slide showing the structure of the EBITDA. And as you can see clearly, in 2021, we became -- we changed from a fertilizer chemical group, we turned into chemical fertilizer group and other segments outside of fertilizer generated a majority of our EBITDA.

And in the Q4, the situation was similar. It is clearly visible, a significant increase of share of non-fertilizer segments in of the EBITDA. Outside of taking care of the financial results, we also take care of the surroundings, and we also want our influence on the environment to decrease. And in 2021, we decreased emission of CO2 by 12%, and we decreased the emission of sulfur dioxide by 37%. And we also increased the energy consumption efficiency, ladies and gentlemen.

And now moving onto the market conditions. It is important to remember what was happening in us surrounding in 2021. We experienced the reconstruction of the business activity worldwide after the pandemic crisis and increase of business activity was also affected by the favorable condition in the labor market. On the raw materials commodities side, we had significant turbulences due to broken supply chains, and it all translated into the changes, increases of prices and commodities are important elements of -- in our group and -- that we also have changes in the gas market, and the gas significantly increased in its price, particularly late last year.

It is also important to remember 2 other events in regulation. Firstly, it is a requirement starting from the first of August 2021 to use inhibitor, use of inhibitor biodegradable cover layering, this is for urea. And another important regulatory change is publication by the EU on the 14th of July, the 55 package. Azoty Group has been implementing solutions, which are replied to the changes in the surrounding. And in the strategic commodities market dominating factor affecting the condition that is a reconstruction of the business activity after the pandemic crisis. And it's significantly affected on the availability of commodities, and also it was translated into increase of prices, and then also in the product manufacturing cost of Azoty.

And the financial results also show some events. And one of the important events was the assault of Russia on Ukraine, which increased those changes I have mentioned before. An important element it showed is also supplies of gas to Poland. And Azoty Group is secured. We have contracts in place with PGNiG, and so this contract is being now realized as agreed.

And we also have presented major elements affecting our situation. On the chart, you can clearly see that not only the commodities prices, but also the monetary policy that was tightened late in 2021. And it also was a result of increasing inflation, and it also translated into challenges in the surrounding and the cost of operations.

As for the gas, which is our largest commodity, if you analyze the situation in early -- starting from early 2017, it is clearly visible that by the end of 2020, we have been experiencing stable -- we were experiencing stable prices and the fluctuations were not significant. Hence from the second half of 2021, the changes significantly increased, prices significantly increased. And in 2021, the prices reached their top in the Q4. And it is also good to remember that the prices were even higher than in 2021. The consumption of gas in the group was on a stable level.

And on the next slide we are presenting a calculation of CO2 emission allowances due to the fact that we purchased not only allowances, but also got free of charge, which significantly affects our costs. As I said before, very significant increase of costs in 2021. If we wanted to analyze this year as a whole, you will see a significant increase in the cost of gas and petrol-based commodities, benzene, phenyl and propylene. And increase in costs was translated into increase of income, and the cost increased almost twice incomes less than that, but in related values. These numbers are similar, a little bit higher increase on the income side.

In the Q4 alone, the trends even stronger -- were even stronger. And the increase of cost, that was more than 150%, income more by 100%. In the fertilizers -- Agro Fertilizers segment, it is good to mention that the prices of products in 2021 were increasing than they were, following the prices of gas. Yes, this is what the market looks like. And the market also responds like this, that in 2021 also the crops prices were increasing, and that was a result of the higher cost of manufacturing process.

And in Agro Fertilizers and some multi compounds fertilizer, the situation was similar. And here, not only gas prices but also potassium chloride prices were important. But in the Q4, the market margin, based on the market prices of fertilizers versus commodities prices was negative, which made the products prices not to be able to follow the prices of commodities.

In 2021, the import of fertilizers to Poland was smaller. And this is the comparison to 2020 with the division to individual types. And that is clearly visible -- and months and it is clearly visible that import significantly decreased, particularly in the second half of the year, which made -- the supply and the demand for our fertilizers was not threatened. And an important element was a huge demand on polyamide F6 in 2021. Nevertheless, in the Q4, we experienced the decrease from the automotive industry, which was caused by some difficulties with the manufacturing of vehicles. And an important factor which affected operation of the Plastics segments were logistical problems, which were translated into prices of both the commodities and products.

In the Chemicals segment, very strong -- strongly visible is the increase of the demand after pandemic, particularly in the areas like paint, construction industry or furniture industry. And the broken supply chains affected availability of commodities and also the demand in the Chemicals segment was particularly good for OXO or melamine.

And now let me move on to the results for individual segments throughout 2021. At the forefront, we have the chemical segment, which generated historical largest results EBITDA. Very good result was also generated by the plastics. In 2021 as a whole, the results of fertilizer was a little bit worse than in the previous year, and we maintained the margin EBITDA.

In Q4 only, a significant factor affecting EBITDA was chemistry, and it was a good quarter. Also plastics and fertilizers, both had good quarters. And fertilizers, it is good to remember that EBITDA was not that high, as -- if we compare it to EBITDA of other segments in Q4, Chemical segment was dominating. Its EBITDA was the highest out of all segments.

And now ladies and gentlemen, Fertilizers and Agro. This is very important that throughout 2021, we maintained the maximum level of production. At the same time, simultaneously, we maintained one of the lowest prices in the European Union. And the primary factor deciding on what was happening in that sector was -- were the prices of gas. And the market was responding to those changes. But not only prices are important, but also volatility and variability. And many companies were stopping their productions, and we maintained our production process throughout 2021. A little bit smaller volumes of sales are a result of planned stoppages for repairs.

And the Q4, it is also an important increase of gas prices, which translated into cost of production of fertilizers and also the increase of prices. Nevertheless, Azoty Group maintained continuity of operations and maintained one of the best prices in Europe. And the Plastics segment, we also see a significant increase of market on the EBITDA level. Throughout 2021, we experienced very good market conditions, particularly due to increase of demand in the automotive industry and carpets, fibers, [ VCE ]. And it is also good to remember that in that segment we also experience with some one-off events, which by net increase EBITDA by PLN 20 million. These are one-off events which will not decide or influence the conditions in the next periods.

And also in the Q4 alone, we can see also the higher EBITDA. That's a Q4 alone and a little bit worse condition in automotive industry due to problems with manufacturing of vehicles. Nevertheless, the conditions beyond on this one element was still good. And so in chemistry, we have a very strong demand, as I said before, because by the recovery from the pandemic and the largest increases of incomes is melamine and urea. And as I said before, that was a very good, historically best year for the group for this segment.

And it's clearly visible that our Q4 also looks good, and EBITDA was higher than in that segment, than in the fertilizers. And our financial situation in 2021 was stable. It was really good. We decreased that level of debt net by PLN 700 million. And by the end of 2021, we maintained EBITDA and debt ratio of below 1 or 0.96. Let me just remind you that the maximum ratio, which is included in the financing documents is at 3.5. And the good financial situation allows us to implement our strategic investments.

And we are showing also the currency structure of credits where the major currency is Polish zloty and euros. And so the currency structure is correlated with our income, sources of income. And our investments in 2021 were carried out according to the schedule. And this is why we changed the expenditures. And this results with the implementation of the schedules. And this is the situation throughout the Q4.

And ladies and gentlemen, whenever we speak about investments, the most important investment larger, obviously, it is Polimery Police. And this is investment advanced by the end of 2021 at the level of 83%. And I think about the product investment, and now it is 90%. And on the next slide, we are showing the elements or the areas of the investments being implemented. They are carried out according to the schedule, which was updated by an appendix. And let me just remind you that appendix number three, which includes the schedule of the investment that also changes the value for the general contractor, this Appendix #3 does not affect the increase in the budget or the increase of the payments is -- or results from the reserve, which was established under the budgets at the very beginning of the investments.

Other major investments are presented on the next slide. And so this is, first of all, the new concept of the power supply for [indiscernible] plant. And so this is based mainly on usage of heat generated in the manufacturing processes and by the same decrease of energy consumption of the process, which can be translated into a decrease of consumption of fuels and decreased emission.

Briefly about the results of individual companies. The results of our companies in terms of income and EBITDA are better or were better in 2021. And the same is the case in the Q4 alone.

And let me now pass the floor to Mr. Hryniewicz to tell you about the results of the Grupa Azoty Pulawy.

[Tomasz Hryniewicz, executive]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you for this very nice introduction. We have very similar conditions, so it is not going to be surprised for you that we split -- the split up of -- in the market, we had also a significant increase of demand for our products or chemical products and fertilizers. On the other hand, we have the crisis in the energy sources market. And Grupa Azoty Pulawy significantly were affected by significant increases in prices of gas, which strongly affected our manufacturing costs and by the same also translated to prices of our products. And Grupa Azoty Pulawy, which is the largest consumer in Grupa Azoty, was the most significantly affected by the turbulences in the energy sources market.

But similar to other companies, we were using -- we were working full power. And let me just say what Marek Wadowski said throughout Europe. We had in our competitive surrounding, some companies stopped their operations or they were significantly slowing down their production, and Grupa Azoty Pulawy and all companies within the group were operating full power, which translated also to the volumes available in the market, in the domestic market.

It is also good to mention that these negative influence in the gas market, where we show that on the 22nd of gas increased to EUR 172 per megawatt hours, that was perfectly mitigated by hedging transactions, and that was something new for the company to that scale. And at the end of October up to the end of the year, going forward and also in the next months, we had a stable situation in terms of prices. We had stable fertilizers prices. And it was encouraging farmers and our distributors to purchase that's a favorable period of time. Not only manufacturing process, but also investments were completed on time and according to the schedule, and I will be speaking about this further in the presentation.

And what I would like to emphasize here, what was also mentioned by Marek, the sales of fertilizers was mainly to the domestic market. And we maintained also one of the lowest net prices -- sales prices in the European Union. And as for the consolidated financial results of Grupa Azoty Pulawy,the increase in income more than 70% was determined mainly by the prices of gas. And that's what we used to calculate our margin. And this results from the specificity of our plant and the parity of the nitrogen-based fertilizers. And consolidated EBITDA was PLN 660 million, and it was higher by 30% compared to the previous year. And was positively affected -- the consolidated results EBITDA was affected by the higher prices of majority of our products, particularly melamine. And after the change of approach to shaping of the prices and by securing the European market, but also -- we had also the larger total volume of sales.

And the sales income increased by PLN 2.82 million and it was PLN 2.96 million due to the increase in prices. And due to the increase in volume, that was PLN 186 million. And the decrease of EBITDA margin was due to particularly not to one-off increase in gas. As in some periods, we sell monthly due to that fact, we needed to supply products according to the contracts we signed before and the commitments we made before that. And EBIT and the profit -- net profit, they were affected by the write-off mentioned by Marek. And this write-off, the value of the assets according to the policies are not included in the calculation of the EBITDA -- EBIT. And the largest write-off was PLN 264 million due to the results of losing of value of plastics. That's obviously [indiscernible] installation.

And in each slide, for comparability of the results, we also included one-off events affecting those results in the previous years. That was the shield, that was the compensate sectoral compressions. And summarizing the quarter, the incomes are increased by more than PLN 182 million, and they were more than double year-to-year. And due to the increase of the price that was a value of PLN 1.22 billion due to increase in volume, PLN 56.7 million. And quarterly consolidated EBITDA that was PLN 395 million, that was higher more than 3x compared to 2020. And this increase was dictated, as I said before, by a very good securing of gas supplies and also profitability on melamine and that. So these were the major determinants affecting our operations.

And the largest change we experienced that was changes in natural gas, which affected the income, we had more than 430% of increase. And the major determinants we use to shape our prices and -- the cost of sales increased by PLN 996 million. And the EBITDA margin, 18.5%, this is increased by 4.6% versus to Q4 of 2020.

And looking at the segment results, regardless of the composition of the segment, the largest income share on sales was income of Agro. In whole 2021, they made 86.6% of the total income versus 82.2% in the previous year, and that was PLN 4.74 billion. Versus to the previous year, it has increased by PLN 2 billion, it is 72%. And the major reason for that was the increase in prices of melamine and also increase of the gas prices. And external in plastics, that was 9.6% of the capital group versus 8.7% in the previous year. And that was PLN 524 million. And versus the previous year, that was an increase by 246% -- PLN 247 million, 87%. And this is also the caprolactam and also semiproducts and benzene.

And quarterly, we had significant increase in Agro, which was 93.5% versus to 83% in the previous year. And the incomes were PLN 1.9 billion and so we also had a decrease in sales -- of sales from 10.9 to 6.6.

And now moving on to the investments. In the Q4, we continued our investments as scheduled. And according to the last day of December of the last year, the largest advancements of the investments amounted 98%. That was the granulated fertilizers. And in the last year, we started the first plant of that installation. And this year, we are planning to commission and the full ramp-up of the second plant and the completion of the investment as a whole by the end of 2022.

And the advancements of the power unit of the largest current investment with more than 63%, and the largest element of the units, this is a pressure part of the boiler and the turbo system were installed. And so the project is now on the stage on facility inside of the building, and we also build the manufacturing plant of the assets. And also we carry out -- also, the nitrogen acid line is being mapped.

And as for the boiler, we have more than 70% of advancement of the works, and this is the modernization to advance the boiler to the new requirements of emission of NOX and also to recreate the boiler together with the boiler 4 and 5, this will be the basic primary manufacturing power generation elements. As for the quarter, the investments -- the consolidated investments in the Q4 were PLN 199 million. And throughout the whole year, 2021, this is PLN 1.085 million and they were 32% higher than the previous year. That was mainly due to the schedule of Pulawy power plants. And it is good to emphasize here that the main source of the financing were our own funds.

And the investments for the last day of last year, we had that under the contracts on fixed assets and PLN 395 million. And those investments -- so this is mainly because of the construction of the power plant units and also the nitrogen acid plants.

And summarizing the group is planning to increase in 2022. We want to spend the amount of PLN 621 million. Out of this, on the environmental protection, they would be PLN 79 million. Thank you very much.

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

Thank you. And now let me pass the floor to Michal Siewierski to tell us about the results of Grupa Azoty Police.

[Michal Siewierski, executive]

Thank you, Mr. President. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. And the summary of 2021, I'm going to start with drawing your attention to a couple of events which happened last year. And so they include the closure of the debt financing of the Polimery Police, and making our factoring contracts with ING and [ Asha ] Bank in Poland and also BNP Paribas factoring [indiscernible] and PKO factoring [indiscernible]. We also had changes in the composition of the Management Board and the Supervisory Board. And let me just remind you also as my colleagues said, the advancement of the key investment that's Polimery Police, the advancement is 83% as of the 31 December 2021.

And now moving on to the consolidated financial results. It is good to mention that significantly -- we had significantly higher incomes than in 2020. And that was generated, particularly in operations, the EBITDA margin was 9%. This is insignificantly by 1% point more than the margin in the previous year. And the consolidated EBITDA result in 2021 was PLN 298 million, and the capital group Police in 2021 finished and the result was PLN 113 million. This is PLN 11 million below the results from the previous year. And the income generated by the company in 2021 were PLN 3.2 billion.

In 2021, that's a significant increase of prices of key products like gas, phosphorites and potassium chloride. In 2021, we made a couple of optimization activities, purchasing processes and selling processes to mitigate negative influence resulting from increasing prices of commodities. All the segments in 2021 achieved the positive results on the level of EBITDA. And the influence of energy compensation in Police was not significant. That amount like PLN 6 million. Also an important aspect affecting the consolidated net result in Police was the results from the associated parties that was the effect of minus PLN 41 million. And this is mainly due to Grupa Azoty Police, and this has resulted from financing of the financial instrument hedging the investment, Polimery Police.

And now moving on to the summary of the results of the quarter, I can say that the EBITDA margin in the Q4 of 2021 was like 10%. It is 3% points more than the margin in 2020. And the Q4 of 2021, Police closed with the net result of PLN 47 million. It is PLN 30 million below the result -- net result from the previous year. And in Fertilizers and other segments in the Q4, both segments had positive EBITDAs. And the most important factors affecting the financial results in the Q4 in Police, it is the increased prices of many commodities we use for manufacturing processes, particularly natural gas, but also other like phosphorites, potassium chlorides and sulfur. And we also were affected by the changes in our products, and the changes of commodities increase the cost of production and the increasing prices in the markets, but also durations of demand and supply affected the prices of products.

And the largest share in the consolidated product in Police were Fertilizers, and it was both in the Q4 of 2021 and also throughout 2021. And operational-wise, the largest margin in 2021 was achieved in [indiscernible] the level was 17%. And in 2021. And as for Fertilizers, the level was 8%.

As for the investments, please remember our flagship Polimery Police, the budget $1.083 billion modernization of the power plants, GPZ Police for connectivity of propane, the harmonization, the budget is PLN 56 million. And the management of hydrogen from propylene installation, the budget was PLN 30 million. And becoming independent from demi-water, becoming independent from the change in solidity of the Adra River, the budget PLN 108 million. And another important, it is exchange of the tower WA2, the budget PLN 16.35 million. And in 2021, the Capital Group Police increased expenditure of -- had the expenditure on fixed assets and intangible assets, PLN 108 million. And 43%, these were expenditures on development of the business.

In 2021, the company started 25 new investment tasks with a total budget of PLN 71 million. And also, we continued 39 investments started in the year -- previous years. Thank you very much.

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, now let me move on to a very brief summary of the results of the Azoty Group in 2021. And let me just emphasize as I said at the very beginning that Azoty Group had good financial results. We maintained the margin despite a demanding -- surrounding in the market. And we made a lot of activities or responses to what was happening in our environment. And that environment was very volatile, particularly late last year.

And so the volatility in the gas market was never experienced before and the prices were fluctuating from EUR 16 to EUR 184. That's a huge volatility looking historically on gas prices. And we maintained one of the lowest fertilizers prices throughout EU, and we maintained production process continuity throughout 2021 despite the significant volatility and significant changes in our surrounding.

And in 2021, we also accepted a new strategy to 2030. And in the financial statements, we also have some events after the balance day. And the most important thing, it is aggression of Russia on Ukraine, which even makes the challenges strongest -- stronger in our surrounding. And then Grupa Azoty has another -- is expecting another very volatile year, and we are undertaking all the activities to maintain our good financial situation in that much volatile conditions.

And now let me pass the floor to Joanna.

[Joanna Barnas, executive]

Thank you, gentlemen, for a very broad presentation of results, and we have some questions from you. So what affected a higher net result and the gross results? And let me ask Mr. Hryniewicz to answer this question.

[Tomasz Hryniewicz, executive]

In '21, results was better than in '20, due to some releases of individuals [Technical Difficulty] I'm very sorry, ladies and gentlemen, the quality of voice is really low, I'm unable to interpret this.

[Joanna Barnas, executive]

Thank you. And the next question, it is about the CapEx value expected by the group in 2022.

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

Ladies and gentlemen, the investment expenditures need to be perceived from 2 perspectives. Firstly, this is a total investment expenditures. And secondly, these are investments without our flagship investment in Polimery Police. Why do we have these 2 perspectives as Polimery Police? This is something what is financed project, project finance formula is applied here. And so the finance is dedicated only to that investment.

And looking at the investment expenditures, without Polimery Police in 2022, we expect the increase roughly 10% of the investment expenditures versus 2021. So year-to-year 2022, 2021, the increase is going to be like 10%. But due to the fact that the investment in Polimery Police is continuously carried out due to its advancement, we expect a significant increase of the expenditures only for that investment. And for that investment alone, these expenditures can be even twice as big as in 2021. Thank you.

[Joanna Barnas, executive]

And the next question is about gas. Can you explain your hedging policy on gas from Q4? How is the company going to hedge the price -- how the company was hedging the prices?

Well, it is clearly visible in the statements and what were the cost of hedging and what is the current position on gas? And do you use PGNiG or some other option solutions?

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

Ladies and gentlemen, how we operate in the gas market, it is a response to significant changes in the surrounding, particularly in the Q4. We had a significant increase in volatility and also had very significant changes and increases in prices.

But this problem also needs to be perceived from 2 perspectives. First perspective is the price. And so as we said before, the increase of our product prices, particularly in fertilizers but not only, was due to the increase in price that was a market-based increase. We still maintain one of the lowest prices throughout the European Union in the market. But fertilizer prices significantly increased due to the increase of prices of gas.

So we can say that in fact, there is no problem, but a very significant volatility, significantly bigger volatility than in the previous year causes a lot of problems for manufacturers. And Grupa Azoty tried to tackle this availability, stabilizing the prices of gas. And for this purpose, we use a mechanism. We have included in the agreement with the PGNiG. And that's where we can assess prices or fixed prices based on the market, but we can do it in advance.

So this is not a classical hedging, but this is a buying of gas at price fixed in advance. And this is a mechanism that we have been using. And ladies and gentlemen, as for the results, obviously, how you calculate how much -- based on the type of calculation you do, but the influence on the EBITDA is significant, and this in the Q4 alone, this is more than PLN 200 million.

[Joanna Barnas, executive]

And the next question, how much percentage of propane purchase was for the Polimery Police, and what are the major sources of buying?

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

For Polimery Police and for securing of this investment and supplying propane, we are now in the process of selecting of suppliers. And after that, we will be adjusting the policy to secure the prices. So we haven't done that yet, but this is something what we are working on and depending on the results of the discussion with potential suppliers, we will shape our process of securing our prices.

[Joanna Barnas, executive]

And the next question is also about gas. What was the effective price of gas in the Q4 of 2021, and when is the company going to come back to the previous policy on benchmarking of monthly-based and spot-based product without hedging?

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

The second part of the question, so this is a question about the future. And I think much will depend on how the market is going to develop. And as we have demonstrated on the charts starting in 2017, the situation was stable. And if the situation is stable, the hedging of prices, of buying of gas at price picks in advance is not that important as in situation of significant changes in the market.

And as for today, continuously we have been working on making the price stable, and we have the results. And one of the very important results is maintaining of the continuity of manufacturing process operations. This is very important for the plants and for securing of the market with the supplies, particularly in the situation of much lower imports of fertilizers.

And I can only say that in the Q4 only at the gas price, that it was on a lower level than what finally was in the Q4 in the market, and this is why we had a positive result. But let me emphasize that this is not a result which is going to be with us continuously as the prices effect depends on how the market is going to develop. And a very important element is stabilizing of price, which allows you to continue per operations and maintain our supplies to the market of fertilizers, and allows to achieve good results with that, that you are able to continue your operations.

[Joanna Barnas, executive]

And the next question. What security activities were started within the group to secure potential problems with supply of natural gas in 2022?

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

And so I'd like to ask Mr. Hryniewicz to answer the question. But I can say only, as we said before, that supplies are based on PGNiG and these contracts are being implemented without any obstacles. And so further comments will come from Mr. Hryniewicz.

[Tomasz Hryniewicz, executive]

Ladies and gentlemen, as a group, as the largest consumer of gas and being the closest to the east of the country is more significantly affected by all perturbations. But this is another day we have been working on, we have fully switched off the Eastern part. And we have not had any decrease in supplies. So there have been no limitations due to this factor. Our plants have been operating according to our schedules 100% and -- which are available off season, in the low season.

Yes. So we've got a wonderful supplies technically and the gas system activities were made many years ago. And they were investing in the pumping stations and other technical solutions, and they guarantee us to be supplied with gas throughout the national system.

[Joanna Barnas, executive]

And the next question is also about gas. How long do you -- for how long do you have stocks of gas? And how long will you continue your operations using your stocks of gas?

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

Grupa Azoty doesn't have storage facilities. Obviously, we use gas available in the grid. And the gas in the grid, obviously, is transferred to Grupa Azoty with the storage facilities. But these are not storage facilities owned by Grupa Azoty, and these are managed by other entities.

So the most important for us is the contract with PGNiG, and this is being implemented without any obstacles. Thank you.

[Joanna Barnas, executive]

And next question is how Russian invasion on Ukraine affected the demand of fertilizers, and what share of fertilizers used in Poland in 2021 were imported from Russia on or Ukraine?

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

So let me ask Mr. Hryniewicz to answer this question.

[Tomasz Hryniewicz, executive]

Ladies and gentlemen, the -- I think, we need to talk about -- summarizing the year 2021. And we were not forecasting the situation as, in fact, was the case. But I had to summarize the full season, which is now about to be finished. That was a really good season, a season full of challenges, but also turbulences and changes in prices and the directions and development of the demand, but that season was one of the best.

And those actions we did, mitigating actions on the one hand that was securing of the gas prices. And on the other hand, that was increasing of the volumes to Poland. Please remember that we were only exporting where we had some contractual where penalties were disabled withdrawing from those contracts. So maximum volumes well placed to the Polish market, and we secure our farmers, and we allow them to have full availability. And also those embargoes and geopolitical things and stoppages of supplies from the Eastern market. And as said before, switches off of the plants, they all affected the deficit of import to our country. Thank you.

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

Ladies and gentlemen, and let's once again display the slides showing the imports comparison of fertilizers in 2021, which confirms what Mr. Hryniewicz has just said about the good season, the import was much lower than in 2020.

[Joanna Barnas, executive]

Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. President, thank you for broadly explaining of the situation in 2021. Should you have any further questions contact our department of investors relationships and we invite you to the next results conference. Thank you.

[Statements in English on this transcript were

spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]