Grupa Azoty SA

WSE:ATT

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q4

[Operator]

Good morning, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the conference call at which we will discuss the performance of the Grupa Azoty Group Companies for the fourth quarter of the year and for the entire financial year of 2022.

I'd like to welcome today's speakers, Justyna Majsnerowicz, Vice President of the Management Board of Grupa Azoty Pulawy; Mr. Marek Wadowski, Vice President of Grupa Azoty, Management Board; Mr. Michal Siewierski, Vice President of the Management Board of Grupa Azoty Police; and last but not least, Mr. Grzegorz Kuberski, Director of the Controlling Department at Grupa Azoty S.A.

I would like to give the floor over now to Mr. Marek Wadowski.

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

A very warm welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to discuss financial performance of the group for 2022. First of all, let us start with a recap of the year.

I would like to draw your attention to -- particularly is the fact that Grupa Azoty, the Thai Group is a group that cherishes its stable financial situation and what happened last year was largely determined by the multi-aggression of Russia against Ukraine. And we might point out here that 2022 started out with a great hope of us rebounding from the pandemic, of us witnessing inflation going down.

However, the situation developed quite in an opposite direction. And in fact, the first half of the year of 2022 was a solid period for Grupa Azoty. However, the challenges that came up later on in our business environment led to a worse situation, a deteriorated situation in the second half of the year. We will, of course, discuss it later on.

A major element we'd like to point to your attention to is the diversification of our business, which allowed us to face the challenges that we witnessed in the environment. 2022 was a year of high volatility in the markets, especially in the gas market, where we witnessed high volatility of prices and obviously, prices were on the high level -- on the high side as well. We saw record high feedstock prices as well. And throughout 2022, we consistently delivered our strategy, starting with the continuing of our flagship investment at Polimery Police and our energy transformation project, which, of course, we'll discuss later on.

Moving on to major or key events of 2022. As I mentioned before, our flagship project, Polimery Police, it is progressing as planned. At the end of the year, Guadalupe Explorer gas tanker delivered the first 22,000 tonnes of propane and we might say that our installation approaches slowly but surely. The start-up process and the startup phase, and we reached the ready for start-up phase. We continue or we are continuing our investments in terms of low emission or actually zero emission projects. We are continuing our work both in terms of capital integration for ZEW Niedzica as well as photovoltaic farm, PV Farm and Brzezinka with the capacity of 270 megawatts in terms of the peak capacity.

We continued projects that are based on biocomponents, bioplastic projects, and we are consistently delivering our strategy here. Quite recently, this week, we signed an agreement on the cooperation in the area of the construction of a research project or center for a ultrasafe MMR reactor. This is an element that was included in our strategy. It is included as an element to reduce our CO2 intensity, emission intensity as well as our energy security for our plans across the group.

Let me remind you at this point that we use not only electricity across the group, but also high temperature steam, water steam. What is a response to the challenges in our environment was the temporary shutdown of our production or cuts of our production that we had to implement last year. We had to adjust our operations to the challenges of the current environment and to meet the current demand and supply situation.

The fourth quarter of 2022 compared to the previous year was down to put it in a nutshell, but I'd like to point out that in the fourth quarter of 2022, we saw 2 one-off events. And one of them was the write-downs on inventories at more than PLN 400 million. Those write-downs, obviously reduced to drop down our EBITDA and EBIT as well as our net profit. And the other one-off event was -- were the write-downs on our property plant equipment or fixed assets in general at more than PLN 290 million. Those write-downs did not weigh on our EBITDA level or EBITDA figure. But they did weigh on our net profit and EBIT. And it translated into the performance across the -- in the entire year.

2022 in general, was a year of satisfactory -- in general, a satisfactory performance despite the major challenges. Our EBITDA came in at a higher -- as a higher figure year-on-year. However, as I said before, this is mainly as a result -- the result of the first half of the year. And the second half of the year was unfortunately a period that saw a deteriorated performance.

Moving on to the market situation, on a macro situation, as I said before, a major event was obviously Russia's military aggression against Ukraine, which obviously caused a number of rippled across our macro environment. It added to the uncertainty that we have mentioned -- I have mentioned before, and the volatility as well across the markets, especially in terms of the markets of natural gas. However, it was not the only market that was affected.

As a result, we saw a major energy crisis across all of Europe. We -- as Europe managed to overcome the crisis and the winter season. However, we are all wide aware of the fact that this was a major challenge that we had to face. And obviously, in 2023, it continues to be observed in the macro environment. Obviously, this challenge is now lessoned or is -- obviously, it has to be faced still for us, not only for us but in Europe in general.

We're not only talking about natural gas. We are also talking about the markets of, for instance, phosphates or chloride which were previously reported from Russia and Belarus and the sanctions imposed on those countries led to skyrocketing prices of these feedstocks as well. Obviously, high inflation and interest rates hikes. Obviously, this is a delayed effect, and the transmission effect is not applied in real time, it has a certain effect of a delay.

But it actually drove down the demand for a number of products, especially in terms of the construction market, not only the construction market, obviously, but the construction market is important to us. Obviously, the accessibility of financing instruments such as credits. All in all, the demand was weakened year-on-year or actually in comparison with previous years in general.

What's also important is the fact that demand. For a number of products was also lower in China due to certain constraints pandemic-related constraints. As a result, leading to more interest of Chinese producers in European markets. Obviously, it's strengthened or intensified competition. So again, in addition to high prices, we needed to in 2022, we had to face fiercer competition from Asian producers.

We also saw cuts in production, not only to Grupa Azoty, those production cuts affected practically all producers in the business -- in our business, mainly in terms of fertilizers or nitrogen-based fertilizers which is obviously due to the marketing supply -- the demand and supply situation. And it's worth pointing out that in Poland, we managed to maintain the availability of fertilizer products to our customers.

Given the situation -- market situation, we decided to publish, and we will continue to publish our production data, starting from the beginning of the year. So you can see the summary of 2022 compared to previous years. And you can see quite clearly the production figures went down across all our key segments in 2022, which was mainly due to constrained -- production-related constraints.

And as I said before, the gas market, as you can see in the chart, upper right side, there was a lot of volatility across the year. This was an exceptional historical year, in this respect, we saw great volatility and uncertainty to the gas market in general. For instance, on March 7, gas prices went up by nearly 80%. This is a major increase, one day increase. So as you can see, there was a lot of volatility at the end of the year towards the end of the year, the situation was a little bit better. However, the year -- the entire year of 2022 was a year abrupt with uncertainty and volatility.

In addition to gas prices, we also had to face interest rates increases or hikes in 2022, which obviously translated into constraints on the demand side, and you can also see the electricity price. It was also volatile and on the high side as well -- as well, the same applies to CO2 emission allowances.

So in terms of costs, the situation in 2022 was unfavorable to companies -- enterprises such as Grupa Azoty. Our CO2 emission allowances balance shows that our emissions went down. However, we needed to face production constraints or cuts. So this obviously translated into lower emissions. Comparing revenue and costs in the quarter 4 alone. Those differences were not that obvious, not that high. More differences, we will see as we look at 2022.

In general, we will see much higher costs of feedstocks, especially gas, but not only this element, we have to remember about electricity, coal, potassium chloride, phosphates. They were all on the rise in terms of their prices versus 2021. So in terms of costs situation, our situation was a major challenge. And obviously, this was translated into the cost of our product -- the price of our products and this applied not only to Grupa Azoty but also to other producers in Europe given this high uncertainty and volatility of our macro environment.

Moving on in a nutshell to our markets starting with Agro segment, I'd like to point to one important element that is the prices of agricultural produce. And as you can see on this slide, starting from 2019, they remain stable even going up slightly. This was a slight increase. Obviously, we saw a major -- we saw a number of changes across the year and some volatility, but these were standard gas -- standard price volatility. However, the price of -- the prices of agricultural produce went up drastically, as you can see on the slide. And then after -- in the second half of the year started to go down.

What does it mean? It means that the situation is now much more stable because as the prices of agricultural produce went down, it also translates into the profitability level. And this is something we have to take into account.

Our clients look at the purchases of fertilizer products differently than before. And you can see it quite clearly when you look at our sales volumes, at that particular period. We show you the market spread for calcium ammonium nitrates versus the costs. And the spread went up. However, in terms of volumes in this case, in our case, it looks worse and it obviously translates into a lower performance or in this particular segment, even though the European -- nominal European spread is higher.

In terms of compound fertilizers, you can see that the situation in 2022 was very difficult to do sanctions as well as rising price of feedstocks which led to a situation that in which both the spread and the margin in general -- mark-to-market margins in general were negative. And in these particular conditions, these were the particular conditions that we had to face. We, as all European producers had to face last year.

You can see an example of 3 years in comparison for ammonium nitrate and NPK fertilizers and compound fertilizers. As you can see, imports are lower than before. However, the imports of urea went up, this you cannot see on this particular slide, but actually, the imports of urea went up. We have to remember that urea is imported from countries that have to -- that have lower gas prices.

To sum up the Agro segment. First of all, we need to remember about high volatility, mainly due to the situation in the natural gas markets. As a result, last year, we saw temporary shutdowns of our production units across all of Europe, especially in terms of the production of fertilizers. And we obviously had to face uncertainties in terms of food security due to Russia's aggression against Ukraine. These actually did not come to life those concerns. However, we had to remember about those concerns as well. And as I said before, imports of urea in the second half of the year went up.

In the Chemicals segment, the main challenge here was declining demand, mainly due to lower demand on the consumer side, on end consumer side, especially in terms of construction industry whose appetite for those products was much lower year-on-year, even though as we -- you can see here, those spreads are quite high, quite satisfactory. But on the back of our heads, we have to remember that those spreads, those figures do not actually reflect the actual situation in the market in terms of volumes sold, for that volumes sold. In terms of volumes, I can say that those volumes were much weaker, much lower than the year before.

As a summary in terms of the Chemicals segment. Obviously, Russia's aggression against Ukraine was a major development and it's changed the situation in the market. Obviously, this was not a favorable change for us. And in 2022, we had to face major challenges, especially on the demand side. And obviously, in terms of the competition -- rising competition from Asian producers.

In terms of Plastics. In this segment, you can see the prices of plastics both in terms of time line and in terms of the comparison geographically in Europe and in Asia. What strikes us here is the fact that prices of those products are much lower in Asia, which obviously means that Asian producers who cannot sell their products in Asia, they focus on the European markets where production costs are -- and they also have obviously a lower production cost.

So in terms of plastics, we have a number of challenges on the demand side. And here as well, we needed to face -- we had to face major uncertainties and instability in the market. As I said before, the first half of the year was much better than the second half of the year and especially the fourth quarter of the year. The Plastics segment faced a lot of challenges. And after the end of 2022, the situation went up slightly or improved slightly. However, we still face a number of challenges, especially on the demand side.

Moving on to performance by segment, as I said before, the performance in the fourth quarter of the year, but also throughout the entire year were affected by 2 one-offs that is write-downs on inventories of more than PLN 400 million -- PLN 400 million, sorry, and also on property, plant and equipment and fixed assets in general. And we saw negative EBITDA figure which is mainly driven by write-downs on inventories. The situation was difficult across all of segments.

The situation in the fourth quarter as far as the entire year is concerned, the situation is better due to the drivers I have mentioned before, that is an improvement in terms of market situation in the first half of the year. However, the 2 segments, Energy & Plastics saw or reported a negative EBIT and with a negative EBITDA reported by another segment. But this was due to a major slump at the end of the year.

Moving on to the Agro segment. As I said before, the sales volumes were -- went down considerably year-on-year, even though European margins are, as I said, higher. As a result, in the fourth quarter alone, we reported a negative EBITDA figure. However, we need to remember that the volatility in terms of gas prices has a major impact on our performance in the Agro segment.

So far, we saw relatively stable prices of gas. And we were able to determine actually the price trends. We reduced prices after the season, and they went up steadily. They would go up steadily before the next season. Right now, given the very volatile markets situation, it's not easy or it's not actually doable. This translated into high uncertainties on the customer side as well.

In the Chemicals segment, as I said before, the volumes were lower year-on-year. A major drop was reported for melamine. I do believe that this will be discussed later on. In addition to significantly lower demand and its impact on our figures was the increase in costs. This segment had to face this challenge as well, the rising prices.

In the Plastics segment. Throughout 2022 which closed with a negative EBITDA figure but it was driven by the situation in the fourth quarter. We saw a major increase in costs and a drop in sales volumes due to lower demand and much fiercer competition.

In terms of our financial standing at the end of 2022, it was stable. It was quite solid. We reported solid results for 2022 in general which allows us to respond to market challenges. Debt-to-EBITDA was at 0.86, which was quite -- which was on the safe side. We have free financing possibilities here. So I do believe that our financial standing is quite good. In terms of investments. We reported PLN 973 million that this does not include our flagship project Polymer Police, which is worth PLN 480 million. In the year -- across the year, we reported PLN 2.746 billion.

Moving on to our flagship project, Polymer Police, it is a major element of our diversification efforts in order to strengthen our business, especially in the area of Plastics. This project proceeds as planned. In mid-March, we reached the ready for start-up phase. At the end of the year, the stage was -- the stage of the project was more than 80%. Right now, it's at more than 99%. We will show you a couple of photographs here for you to see that this project is action nearing is completion or is actually ready as we speak in order to -- for it to produce profit.

Moving on to our other investments. First of all, we need to mention our new energy concept, especially at Kedzierzyn, which includes 7 sub-projects. The main assumption of all these projects is the use of process heat from ammonia installations to produce energy carriers and electricity which obviously will translate into reduction of emissions and reduction of consumption of coal across the group. Other investments will be discussed further on by our respective speakers.

As a recap in terms of our performance in general across the group. Fourth quarter of 2022 was a quarter of major challenges for all group companies, as you can see here on this slide, especially in terms of EBITDA. 2022, in general was a satisfactory year across all of the group.

I'd like to now give the floor over to the representative of Grupa Azoty Pulawy to discuss the group's performance.

[Justyna Majsnerowicz, executive]

2022 was a year of high volatility and uncertainty in terms of geopolitical and macro situation. It was a difficult year on the feedstock side. And it was a year where we -- when we saw a major instability in terms of demand and supply, especially in the fourth quarter and it still continues as we speak.

The first half of the year was quite positive for us. We reported a solid performance and surpluses in terms of our financials. The second half of the year was a very difficult period. We had to cut down of our production and stop most of our units temporarily, obviously, due to the situation in the natural gas market. But due to our performance in the first half of the year, our annual performance still remained positive. We remained on the safe side in terms of liquidity and financial spending.

As we said before, I'm speaking -- I'm talking about the one of our interim reports. We decided to stop our production temporarily. However, we continued our investments and our development efforts consistently. We focused on 2 areas, here fertilizers and energy or energy efficiency and we practically operationalized our strategies in the line with the overall Grupa Azoty Group's strategy for 2021, 2030.

We also delivered key elements or key investment in the fertilizer area. We're talking about ammonium nitrate-based granulated fertilizers. This investment is an entire complex of projects including 2 process lines with a capacity of more than 350 tonnes of fertilizers per year. And as part of our continuing work on this project in partnership with our sister company at Kedzierzyn, we are continuing this project in order to market the new granulated fertilizer product, a new product in the portfolio of Grupa Azoty Pulawy.

In terms of other new products, our company at Chorzów introduced 2 new urease inhibitor-based products in the market. I'm talking about Azovilen S and Azovilen G. These are products that are indispensable as additives to urea-based products as they -- and also they drive down emissions to atmosphere. This project was developed together with the Grupa Azoty center -- research center in Tarnów. So on the one hand, we worked hard on developing and enriching our portfolio. And on the other hand, we focused on the model of our markets. We assumed the role of an exclusive distributor of Compo Expert products. This was taken over -- this task was taken over by our -- one of our group companies.

Other events of 2022 was inflation rates going up and obviously also price pressures, especially in terms of natural gas, electricity, benzene or coal and also interest rate hikes. We also saw or observed a market situation with much weaker demand for some of our businesses, for instance, melamine, or plastics. We also saw expansion of new production capacities in China which translated into instability of supply and demand in Europe and a great gap in terms of price levels in those 2 markets, especially in terms of melamine and plastics.

All these factors had their consequences especially in terms of impairment tests, which we conducted at the end of the year. And for 2 cash-generating units, that is CGU, that is melamine and plastics, we saw a shortage of around PLN 570 million on the minus side. Therefore, we decided to recognize write-downs or impairment write-downs in this amount, these are noncash write-downs. They do not affect our liquidity, they do not affect our consolidated EBITDA either. However, they translate into our EBIT level as well as our net -- both net and gross result.

Moving on to specific figures for the fourth quarter of the year. The fourth quarter of 2022 was a year in which we resumed production at Grupa Azoty Pulawy. On October 12, we decided to resume production in our production facility -- fertilizer production facilities, especially in terms of caprolactam and 1 of the 3 melamine production lines. This translated into our revenue figure, our consolidated revenue from sale at Grupa Azoty Pulawy in the fourth quarter of the year came in at PLN 1.8 billion in comparison with the previous year.

They went down by more than PLN 280 million or by 13% year-on-year, mainly due to changes in volumes going down by nearly PLN 900 million, especially in terms of lower sales of caprolactam, melamine and urea for purposes -- used for purposes other than fertilizers. We also saw a decrease by PLN 600 million in terms of costs especially on NOXy. ammonium sulfate and UAN.

So those 2 factors translated into negative net result for the fourth quarter of the year and the consolidated loss was at PLN 590 million, and the result went down by more than PLN 660 million year-on-year. Our consolidated EBITDA went down by nearly PLN 400 million year-on-year. As I said at the beginning, it was also obvious when we see -- when we look at EBITDA and also EBIT, this was due to impairment losses and write-downs we had to recognize.

Moving on to the key consolidated parameters for the entire year. The drivers here were mainly higher rising feedstock costs, especially natural gas going up by nearly 160% -- or 70% year-on-year and the same applies to benzene, up by 40% as well as electricity costs going up by 30%. All in all, in terms of the cost side and the financial side, the increase in costs was at PLN 2.7 billion.

Our consolidated revenue across the group, Grupa Azoty Pulawy Group was at PLN 8.9 billion, going up by PLN 3.4 billion year-on-year mainly on the back of increasing price or increase prices across all product groups and obviously, in terms of lower volumes, especially in terms of melamine, caprolactam and ammonium nitrate. Our consolidated EBITDA for the entire group at Pulawy for 2022 came in at PLN 1 billion or nearly PLN 1 billion going down year-on-year. Our net profit -- net result was at PLN 291 million, going up year-on-year. And again, it was driven by certain market developments and obviously, by the write-downs impairment losses we had to recognize.

Moving on to a breakdown of our performance by segment for the fourth quarter of the year. We can see quite clearly on this chart the contribution of segments to EBITDA in the fourth quarter. The performance here was driven by write-downs. It changes the structure of our operating segments. Our 3 major segments Agro, Plastics and Energy, which, all in all, generate round 80% of our revenue, reported negative figures in terms of our operating performance.

In Agro, we reported a decline year-on-year by 15% which was mainly due to lower sales volumes, especially in melamine, which saw a major drop and the same applies to urea, ammonium nitrate or nonfertilizer urea. At the same time, the costs went up by more than PLN 100 million, especially due to higher cost of feedstocks. As a result, the Agro segment reported lower EBITDA by more than PLN 380 million year-on-year. The revaluation write-down based on impairment tests for the Agro segment came in at PLN 194 million.

Moving on to the Plastics segment. Due to cuts of production in the fourth quarter in the Plastics segment, we saw a drop in revenue by PLN 75 million to PLN 66 million. And at the same time, we saw lower production costs or cost of production sold down to PLN 112 million. Year-on-year, we reported larger loss at the EBITDA level going up by PLN 30 million from minus PLN 17 million in 2021 to minus PLN 47 million for the fourth quarter of 2022. The Plastics segment -- in the Plastic segment, we had to recognize the revaluation write-downs of -- on our property, plant and equipment at PLN 40 million.

In terms of the Energy segment, the revenue in the fourth quarter came in at PLN 85 million, going up by PLN 52 million year-on-year mainly on the back of higher sales of electricity. However, EBIT for this segment saw a major loss of minus PLN 310 million, which was due to the recognition of impairment, also write-downs.

Throughout 2022, in terms of segment contribution, the main contributor was the Agro segment. Traditionally, accounting for 88% of our consolidated revenue across the entire Grupa Azoty Pulawy Group at PLN 7.8 billion, which in comparison to -- with 2021, translates into an increase of PLN 3.1 billion. This was mainly driven by higher prices of nonfertilizers, fertilizer urea as well as NOXy's and high prices of fertilizers in general, despite lower volumes across the portfolio. The performance of Agro segment in terms of the EBITDA level. The EBITDA for the segment was nearly PLN 950 million. And if we compare it to 2021, it means that it went up by more than PLN 300 million.

In terms of our Plastics segment, the contribution is at 7% to the revenue figure in general, it went down, obviously, by 10% year-on-year, which was obviously due to production cuts and lower sales volumes. At the EBITDA level, the Plastics segment reported a negative figure at minus PLN 37 million, considering there was a loss of minus PLN 36 million. This means that this trend is slightly down in terms of unprofitability of this particular segment.

In terms of our Energy segment, high market prices translated into nearly PLN 290 million and going up by PLN 180 million year-on-year. EBITDA for the Energy segment came in at PLN 112 million, going up by nearly 90% year-on-year.

Moving on to our investment projects. Our key projects are presented on this slide. As I said at the beginning, we focus on 2 major areas here that is fertilizers on the one hand and on the other hand, our energy efficiency. The largest investment at Grupa Azoty Pulawy Group is the construction of energy -- of energy units based on coal. The budget for this project is at PLN 1.2 billion. And the goal of this project is to ensure our energy security based on the supply of heat in the form of process steam that is necessary to continue our production -- interrupted production in our process lines.

We will shut down 2 oldest boilers here. This would translate into our energy efficiency. And obviously, it will drive down our CO2 emissions. This project at the end of 2022 was at more than 93% in terms of the stage of its completion. We are continuing with the finishing steps here in terms of roads and buildings, and we are approaching the startup tech -- the startup stage of this product.

Polimex-Mostostal, which is the general contractor in this project applied to us with -- in order to change the terms of this contract. A general contractor also asked to prolong the term of this project with the involvement of our process engineer or contract engineer as well as our legal team, we are negotiating this contract.

Another investment is the upgrade of nitric acid production unit as well construction of new nitric acid units. The budget is nearly PLN 700 million. And one of the goals of this targets of this investment is to drive down the emissions of one of the greenhouse gases that is produced. We completed works on the production line -- neutralization line. Another project is the upgrade of steam boiler in order to reduce our NOx emissions. The stage of completion is at 91% at this point. So it's drawing its completion.

Another investment here, you cannot see it on this slide, but we will show it later on. We are also working on the urea 2 units, the budget of PLN 140 million. This is a major product as well because it is meant to drive down our energy in this intensity and emission intensity of our urea production which is obviously very important. If we consider fierce competition in terms of the supply of the urea that is important, especially from Asia and this investment, just as investments granulated fertilizer products, was based on, first of all, public aid instruments and also is completed as part of a special economic zone.

All in all, in the fourth quarter and in the entire year of 2022, in terms of our investment projects. In the fourth quarter, we are talking about PLN 191 million and the spending in general is for the year is PLN 445 million. You can see the changes in the structure of our spending -- CapEx spending across the year. The major spending was made in accordance with the schedule in 2021, for instance, for some of the projects. Therefore, the spending for 2022 was not that high. However, all those investments proceed as planned, so their financing is obviously correlated.

Thank you very much for your attention.

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

Thank you. And now we will move on to the performance at Grupa Azoty Police, and I would like to ask the representative of Grupa Azoty Police here.

[Michal Siewierski, executive]

I'd like to start by drawing your attention to a number of major developments in 2022. A major issue was obviously a record high increase in production feedstocks and energy carriers, which were translated into a major cost of our production, combined with a major drop in our sales volumes. We saw a very serious situation in terms of supply versus demand, especially in combination with fierce competition from Asia.

The Polimery Police project was obviously very important here, the stage of completion at the end of the year is at 99% -- nearly 99%. We accepted the implication of Grupa Azoty Group strategy for 2021, '23. The Polimery Police project was cofinanced from the European Union's funds. We signed an agreement for the purchase of ilmenite with Titania AS. And last but not least, we signed a 3-partite agreement for the construction of a module MMR reactor -- fourth generation reactor at Police.

Moving on to our financials. We need to point that in the fourth quarter of 2022. Police -- Grupa Azoty Police reported consolidated revenue at PLN 1.3 billion, and our EBITDA figures came in at minus PLN 44 million and EBITDA margin at minus 11%. The issuers results in the fourth quarter of 2022 included revaluation write-downs on nonfinancial fixed assets as well as inventories, ready products and semifinished goods as well as feedstocks. Those write-downs translated into negative operational performance in the fourth quarter of the year. The combined effect on EBIT figure was minus PLN 431 million and PLN 197 million in terms of EBITDA.

Without those write-downs, both EBIT and EBITDA figures would be positive. The write-downs were mainly driven by a major increase or hike in interest rates which obviously were driven by -- or affected the forecast discount levels. If the discount rate stayed as they were in 2021, then we would need to recognize no write-downs at all. Obviously, if other assumptions state as they work the necessity to recognize write-downs were mainly driven by drops in terms of the prices of products which are at lower levels than their production costs. Our net result was at minus PLN 301 million and was mainly driven by the write-downs that I have mentioned before. The spending or CapEx spending versus 2021 came -- went up considerably. However, this was mainly due to the schedules for the implementation of those projects.

As a commentary to our performance, in terms of our performance across the year, we need to point out that Grupa Azoty Police Group reported consolidated revenue at PLN 5.3 billion and EBITDA at PLN 225 million with EBITDA margin at 4.2%. The issues report -- performance in this period were determined largely by the market's effects of the military aggression of Russia against Ukraine. The record high increase in the prices of feedstocks, as well as energy carriers.

As a result of this macro situation, we saw a major increase in product prices, combined with drops in terms of sales volumes and an instability of supply versus demand. Rising inflation was also a major driver, and it resulted in higher costs or overheads. Our performance were also affected by the recognition of write-downs on nonfinancial fixed assets as well as inventories as well in terms of products semifinished goods and feedstocks. Our investment spending was up 10% versus 2021.

Moving on to a segment discussion. In the Fertilizers segment in the fourth quarter of the year. The main drivers were major volatility of prices of feedstocks, instability of supply versus demand and drops in terms of the prices of agricultural produce. We need to remember about natural gas prices, which were very dynamic. The price of feedstocks that are used in the production of compound fertilizers were high, producers waited for the development in the market and consumers decided to or customers decided to withhold the purchases, waiting for lower prices of fertilizers. As a result, we saw a major drop in -- on demand and the higher inventory levels on the producers and distributor side.

Another problem was -- were the concerns in terms of the reactions in the agricultural produce market, especially in terms of dropping, declining prices of agricultural produce, combined with high volumes of cereals important from Ukraine. In terms of our nitrogen products, the situation was mainly affected by the relationship between the sales prices of products versus the prices of natural gas.

In the Pigments segment, especially in terms of titanium white, the demand was lower than expected. Obviously, was due to the instable or unstable macroeconomic climate. There was a slight slowdown in the Chinese market. The problem persisted in terms of the progress of works in terms of sea fraud or sea transport from Asia. Many producers in Europe that produce titanium white performed in the situation of -- or in the context of limited production capacities or outputs.

In the Fertilizer segment, EBITDA margin went down from 7.7% in 2021 to 4% in 2022. In the Pigment segment EBITDA came in at minus 0.1%, going down by 15.5 percentage points versus 2021. The EBITDA margin was driven by obviously write-downs on inventories and the negative EBITDA figure in both segments were -- was driven by impairment losses on PP&E.

We are drawing or we are approaching the final stages of a number of major investments at Grupa Azoty Police Group. Our priority investments are Polymer Police project and our investments related to certain adjustment processes such as modernization of our power station at Police as well as the management of hydrogen produced in propylene units on the ammonia production unit. The stage of completion of this project is at 82%.

Another important project that is in progress are making our mineralized water production independent of the variable salinity of the Oder River and we are doing our best to up our capacity in terms of the production of special waters. All in all, our CapEx spending was at PLN 197 million. Our investment spending went up year-on-year by 10%, growth investments or growth projects represented 29% of our spending in 2022. And in 2022, we completed 93 investment projects in general, both continued and new projects.

Thank you very much for your attention.

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

Thank you for your attention. And as a recap of this conference call in terms of how we see the prospects for 2023. First of all, last year was affected by Russia's military aggression against Ukraine which obviously translated into high volatility in the market and uncertainties, high gas prices. And obviously, the energy crisis that swept across Europe in 2022.

This year, in 2023, we adjusted our production to the unstable supply versus demand situation, and we need to point out that this approach was implemented in 2022 and is continued in 2023. This is why we decided to inform you about our production levels month-by-month.

The performance in 2022 can be assessed as satisfactory. However, the first half of the year was much better, whereas the second half of the year, was affected by a number of macro challenges. We are continuing our strategic investments as you saw both in terms of Polymer Police, but also a number of other investments that are important to deliver our strategy.

In terms of the outlook for 2023, we must point here that the macro situation will remain challenging. We expect that the second half of the year can be better than the first half of the year. The other way around if we compare it to 2022. However, what's really important to us in this area is the fact that we expect lower demand and obviously, by extension, to lower volumes in both Agro and Plastics, as well as Chemicals segment.

What do we do to -- what will we do to face those challenges? What is really important to us is to face those problems and emerge stronger from this demanding market situation with better prospects for the future. Obviously, we need to deliver our strategy to that end, especially our strategic investments, flagship investments such as Polymer Police, but not only that project is important. All those projects will make our group stronger as a player in the Plastics segment.

We will also diversify our business to a large extent. As a result, we will be able, as a group, in general, to generate stable and higher financial results. In 2023, we will obviously continue our efforts in order to reach energy transformation. This was discussed by my predecessors, discussing the performance of their respective groups and companies, but we will continue these efforts because we can see quite clearly that one of the major elements that will strengthen our competitive standing or a competitive edge in Europe is the fact that we can offer to our clients or customers, products that are different from other products on the market, especially in terms of products that are more green, more environmentally friendly products. This is our selling point. This is something we need to continue, and we will continue. This is a unique selling proposition for the group.

And last but not least, we will continue to adjust our production levels to the market situation and optimize our cost side as well. We are driven by the ambition to tap those opportunities in 2023 in order to strengthen our group and make the outlook for 2023 and upcoming years to even better. Thank you very much for your attention.

[Operator]

Thank you. And now we will move on to the Q&A session. First question. What was the result for technical urea in 2022? Mr. Grzegorz Kuberski will answer that question.

[Grzegorz Kuberski, executive]

Technical urea business and derivatives accounts for around 3/4 of EBITDA in terms of consolidated EBITDA in the Chemicals segment.

[Operator]

Question number two. What is the CapEx still available at the -- for the Polymer Police project? Mr. Marek Wadowski will answer that question.

[Marek Wadowski, executive]

The Polymer Police project is drawing or nearing its completion. It's at the start-up phase nearly not always is the fact, not always is the stage of completion in terms of the technical scheduled completion translates one to the financial stage. We still have around PLN 2 billion -- PLN 2 million to spend. But we need to remember that this is a project finance formula. So the debt in terms of that project does not affect our net debt-to-EBITDA for the entire group.

[Operator]

Thank you very much, and this will be all for today's conference call. I would like to invite you to our investors chat with Mr. Marek Wadowski at stopwatch at 2 PM. Thank you very much for your attention.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]