Jastrzebska Spolka Weglowa SA

WSE:JSW

Earnings Call Analysis

JSW Q3 2023 Performance Dips as Market Weakens

In Q3 2023, JSW Group's coal production increased by 3% (100,000 tonnes) compared to Q2, while coke production remained flat. Coal mining costs decreased slightly by 0.7%. However, revenue fell substantially by 17.8% to PLN 3.4 billion amid a 20.7% drop in coking coal prices and a parallel 20% reduction in coke prices. EBITDA, net of one-offs, plummeted by 37.5% to PLN 1.28 billion. Without the solidarity contribution, the group would have posted a Q3 profit of PLN 95.5 million; instead, it faced a net loss of PLN 1.2 billion. Despite these challenges, the company achieved a net profit of PLN 885 million over the initial nine months of the year.

Revenue Decline and EBITDA Impact

JSW Group faced a revenue decline in Q3, with a 17.8% drop to PLN 3.4 billion compared to last year, and a year-to-date decrease of 25% reaching PLN 12 billion overall. This dip reflects a broader challenging economic environment, which also saw the EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) fall 61% to PLN 531 million in Q3 and 57.1% to PLN 3.8 billion over nine months. EBIT results similarly declined, indicating a trend of contracting financial performance.

Operational Challenges and Cost Increases

Operational results were mixed, with coke sales down by 70,000 tonnes in Q3, which impacted the revenue by PLN 131.6 million. Yet, there were increases in steam and coking coal sales volumes. Costs rose less than 3% quarter-over-quarter but significantly by 31.5% over the first nine months of the year to PLN 11.89 billion. Major cost drivers included employee benefits, which surged by PLN 1.4 billion due to agreements with social parties at JSW, inflation-driven material costs, and escalated external services costs by PLN 456 million or nearly 36%.

Mining Cash Costs and Conversion Costs

Mining cash costs slightly decreased to PLN 745.32, mainly due to higher coal production, which helped mitigate increases in employee benefits and energy costs. However, cash conversion costs rose to PLN 320.81, primarily because of a rise in employee benefits. These figures suggest increased pressures on operational efficiency.

Working Capital Adjustments and Debt Position

The group adjusted their working capital figures to account for investments in a closed-end fund, showing a net settlement of PLN 6 billion. Additionally, there are short-term adjustments due to assets and liabilities related to the fund. JSW’s debt metrics indicate a sound financial position with a comfortable fixed capital to current assets ratio and a proper shaping of the net debt to equity ratio after accounting for investment fund assets.

Profit Generation and Cash Flow

Despite the challenging conditions, JSW Group continued to generate profit, with a profit before tax of PLN 109 million in Q3. The cash flow remained robust, with PLN 4.8 billion at the end of September, and a net positive operating cash flow after investments and financing activities. The group made substantial investments in permanent assets and managed to stay in the black with a positive FX difference of nearly PLN 144 million.

Market Strategies and Future Prospects

JSW highlighted its unique position as a merchant coker and its strategies in dealing with volatile coking coal prices and market dynamics. Their commitment to contractual obligations, even in unfavorable market conditions, is expected to strengthen relationships and potentially increase market share in Europe. The group also envisions a long-term advantage, anticipating competitors' vulnerabilities to high coking coal prices and market downturns.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Edward Pazdziorko, executive]

Good morning. We would like to welcome you -- ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to welcome our shareholders of the JSW Group for today's results conference, we would like to present the results of the company for Q3 2023. We will also refer to Q2, and we'll also sum up the results for the first 9 months of the year.

During today's presentation, as in previous presentations, we'll talk about our segments -- segment -- Sebastian Bartos will talk about the market environment, Robert Ostrowski, who is the CFO. We'll talk about the financials and myself, Edward Pazdziorko, and so I'm the Technical Operations Director, and I'll talk about the operating and investment results.

So on the first slide, we'll talk about, we'll show you the figures, the highlights showing what we did in Q3 versus Q2. If we look at coal production, it was 3.4 million [ thousand ] tonnes. And so this was up over Q2 by nearly 3% by more than 100,000 tonnes. As I mentioned at the previous conference, we said that the remaining quarters would see growing output. Of course, we are some -- there are some geological impediments. Coke production is more or less the same level at 852,000 tonnes. It's a slight difference. It's down by 0.1% over the previous quarter. If we look at the mining cash cost, it's down in Q3 at PLN 740.37 and so it's improvement of 0.7%.

If we look at the cash conversion cost for coke, it's PLN 320.8. So it was up by 3.5% versus Q2. If we look at sales revenues, they're at PLN 3.4 billion. And so if we look at the results, they're down by 17.8% versus Q2. And in the next rectangle, we can see what contributed to the sales revenues. So the averaging coking coal price was PLN 979. And you can see that the market environment was such that the prices were down by 20.7% versus Q2.

And so we can also see in coke prices that they were down to PLN 1,358, and they were also down by 20% versus Q2.

The EBITDA net of one-offs in this quarter was PLN 1.28 billion, and it was down versus Q2 by 37.5%. So the net result, we should look at that in 2 categories. So if we look at the solidarity contribution, which is nearly PLN 1.6 million. And this had an impact on the result, which was minus PLN 1.2 billion. If that contribution didn't have to be made, then the group in Q3 would have had would have had a profit PLN 95.5 million. And so at the end of the 9 months, we have a net profit of more than PLN 885 million.

So then if we go on to the next slide, if you look at the operating results of the JSW Group. So if we look at coal and coke production. So coal production was in our 4 mines, 2 combined mines. So we have Borynia-Zofiówka-Bzie. That has 3 sections. And then we have 1 that has 2 sections, knurów-Szczyglowice and then we have the Budryk mine and the Pniówek, which is stand-alone mines.

And so we can see that production was 3.4 million tonnes. And as I said on the first slide, it was up by 3% over Q2 despite the geological impediments, which we had in the Bzie section and Budryk. And if we look at this production into the coking coal segment, after we look at the market, we can see that we were able to increase that production substantially by 132,000 tonnes. So we were up over Q2, and we reduced the production of steam coal by 32,000 tonnes.

So as we sum up the first 9 months of the year, we have production of 10.1 million tonnes, which is lower than the previous year by 4.6%. So we've had 50,000 -- 53,000 tonnes per day, but we have more coking coal in excess of 82% across all of the mines. And so we had 8.185 million tonnes of coking coal. So there's a small difference, 35,000.

We are trying to reduce the amount of steam -- steam coal. And so we want to reduce that versus previous year. We dropped that by nearly 400,000 tonnes. So we've had active longwalls of -- 24 active longwalls in Q3. So the number of active longwalls was up by 4.3% versus Q2. So to sum up for the first 9 months of the year, we had an average of 22.5 longwalls versus previous year, where in the first 9 months, we had more longwalls. So there's a difference of 7% year-on-year.

If we look at the corridor works in Q3, we were able to do more than 17,300 meters. So this was down by nearly 4% over Q2, if we talk about preparatory works. So these are the ones that we were doing with in-house teams as well as external or outsourced teams. So we had some geological dislocations. And so we had -- we were working on some of the galleries. And so that's why some of the differences appeared. So we had a ratio of activity of 5.1 to 5.6 in terms of expanding the amount of gallery works. So if you look at the first 9 months of the year, we can see that we've done a lot more corridor works. We've done some 56,189 meters where this is up by some 6% over the previous year with more than 3,000 meters.

We don't have a lot of differences in terms of the work done by our own staff, but we did see some pretty major increase amongst external companies. So like 38,000 more meters. If we look at coke production, as I mentioned, the difference quarter-on-quarter was not consequential. So we had 85 -- sorry, 852,500 tonnes, the difference was 0.1% quarter-on-quarter. And so we can see that our coke plants continue to be active.

And so we have our 3 coke plants, [indiscernible] which had the major amount of production. Then we had Jadwiga and then the Radlin coking plant. So we can say that the utilization of capacity is around 95%. So for technological reasons, it's not possible to have 100% utilization capacity. So if you look at the first 9 months of the year, we have year-to-date 2.4 million tonnes. And so this is 2.4% down from the previous year.

So blast furnace coke is more than 74% of the mix. And then we have met coke and foundry coke. And then the second thing is industrial coke, which is some 24%. This is more or less where how things look operationally.

Then we can go on to the next slide. The market environment, and I would ask Sebastian Bartos to go ahead and tell us a little bit about the market environment.

[Sebastian Bartos, executive]

Thank you very much. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. So I'd like to say a few words about what's happened in the reported -- the reporting period. So what do we see as a company. If we look at coking coal, steam coal and steel, so I would take a look at the international markets because JSW is part of that market. It's not the maker of that market, but the taker of the prices on this market. And so it has to align to the reality that we see in across Europe and in the world.

So if we look at steel production and looking at the EU and across the world. If we look at Q2 and Q3 of this year, we see once again that there is a split, the decline in production is much bigger in Europe than across the world. So it's down by nearly 10%, whereas around the world, the decline is less than 5%.

What is noteworthy, this is quarterly data. Quarterly data are not always indicative what's happened over the last 9 months from the beginning of the year, we can see that the decline in Europe is around 9%, 10%. But around the world, production was down by nearly 1/10 of 1%. So you can see there's a split or a dichotomy between Europe and the rest of the world and to make this even more visible with greater detail, you don't see this on the slide.

But I would like to emphasize one thing. If we were to want to compare Q3 2021 to this period. So if we look at 2 years ago, in Europe, the production decline is in excess of 20%, whereas rest of the world is around 1%. So we can see more and more that there is a dichotomy. So the economic conditions for producing steel in Europe and the ability to sell these products versus the rest of the world, I'm talking about India, in China, primarily. Those are the 2 continents, which are the drivers of steel production.

If we look at prices, in Europe and across the world for coal, coke, we can start with steel prices. If we look at all of the ratios indicators, they're all negative, both for long products and flat products. In the European markets, we have declines of some 15% if we compare these quarters. But to give you an illustration of what's happening with production of steel.

In the most recent 2 years, price has fallen by some 41% -- 31%. So it's more or less -- so we can say that the good period, I'm not talking about the most recent record-breaking year, but the last 2 to 3 years, where we can say these indicators really clearly show that the market is slowing down after the record-breaking period we have behind us. And the same is true of coke prices. The situation is quite similar. So European prices and Chinese prices have fallen. So the decline in Europe is 14%. Just looking at the movement from Q2 to Q3, it's 6% in that same period in China. So Chinese coking prices are very low levels, and that's why the decline is not so notable -- noticeable.

And so one thing that we should give some commentary, if we look about semi-soft we can see -- say that this is part of the general trend for falling prices in commodities. But if you look at the premium some of the hard coking coal, which is the basis for contracts of JSW. Well, we see some increases. This is a totally different situation. First is the rest of the commodities market. That's because the top quality coal is sought after, mainly thanks to the demand of the Indian market, which is growing. So we can say this coal has customers, there's a demand for it and there's pressure having in mind the supply of that coking coal. And so we're trying to utilize that -- utilize that as JSW.

I remember there was a longer decession on the subject because it seems it was 2 or 3 years ago, American coal was priced higher than Australian coal. And the question is whether or not JSW should follow us higher indicators, and we said no. And it turns out that this was a very good decision. This was a [indiscernible] and we can see that the Australian price indices are substantially higher. So this applies not only to the weaker, softer, semi-soft coal but also the hard premium coking coal.

So to be brief, all of the indicators in the most recent quarter and the last 9 months and even in the last 2 years, well, they're negative. They're in the red, with the exception of 1 product, which is our key product and which is our benchmark for setting prices in Europe and for our coking plants. And I'll talk about that in a moment when we talk about coke production and what the economic viability of that is. This is positive as a company we're trying to tap into that.

Next slide, please. So if we look at our results, despite the windfall tax, despite the ownership decision on legal regulations, we were obligated to pay this tax. And so you have a profit of PLN 840 million year-to-date despite the more demanding market conditions. If we look at the figures reported in the last couple of quarters, and the orange bars, you can see that prices are falling, and this is consistent with what we see on the international prices.

So I would mention here that we're selling -- this is the general price up. So this is the combined price, also is semi-soft. And we have these price formulas, different models, which I talked to you about. And then we have the Nippon Steel model. Previous quarters, we have spot prices. And so for us, the quotation period, the reference period, which you can see.

In the gray box has the most recent 5 months. If we look at the changes in this box, we can see the change -- the prices have fallen by some 20%, and that's what the result of JSW reflects, so we have a decline of the amount.

So compared to the international market, we're highly positioned and having in mind our geographic rent and we would have to -- we're trying to avoid the exports of coal outside of the market. We continue to have a 97% replication of the TSI premium HCC prices. So again, this is another quarter where we've been very close to the benchmark.

If we look at coke prices, and what we've been able to command JSW. So the average price for coke was $407 and now it's $329. So it's down by some 20-odd percent, but the coke market is totally different. It's much more complicated market than the coking coal market. It's much more sensitive, much more fragmented. And we can say all in the coke market in Europe and outside Europe, this is the market where the buyers start control, there's a lot of surplus products and for some time we have an unfavorable relationship between the prices.

If we look at the most recent months, we have prices at the same level for coking coal and coke. And if we have to use 1.4, 1.3 tonnes of physical coal in order to produce a tonne of coke depending whether you're using top stamping method or some other method for -- in putting the charge of coking coal. We have one disadvantage against coke. Of course, the coke plants have their own costs and the cash conversion cost and the margin that it should generate. So if we're looking at these price relationships, it's not possible for European coking plants to generate a positive result.

For this reason, I'll talk about that. Our policy as a group, we're an integrated group. So we have coke as part of the coking coal production. And so we're quite a different entity. So the policy of pricing we're using. And of course, we have to have in mind the market, which is over inundated with coke. We want to maintain all of our contracts despite the negative results on the coke segment, we won't deviate from these contracts. We want to show our stability as the large coking coal and coke group here in Europe and abroad. We have a lot of volumes sold outside of Europe.

And this is another argument as we look at the prices that we're able to comment compared to what you see elsewhere where you see the Chinese coke in gray and the prices for European coke. So we're much closer to the Chinese prices, but 2 things are worthy of being noted, we compare ourselves and think about the relationships with blast furnace coke. And here, you have a combined or blended price for all of the coke products that come from our coking plants. And so we have even minor fractions where the prices are lower. So we have to have in mind what's happening with supply in Europe.

So a major portion of our products. We're exporting this through the ports and exporting it outside of Europe to make sure that we can continue to use 100% of the capacity -- production capacity in our coking plants and having in mind the geographic rent and the differences aren't so large any longer.

If we think about the cost of freight, overseas freight. So we had -- we have EUR 40 to go from -- to the [indiscernible] and we have [ EUR 55 ] on the seas, but the market conditions are different. But -- these are markets we want to continue to nourish and we want to have the full capacity to utilize the capacity we have in the group.

I would add one other thing. We're the only group in Europe that has -- we don't reduce production in our coking plants. We're using our own coal. We're taking advantage of the fact that we don't have to buy coking coal in the market. We're using our own coking coal. We know the production costs of that coal. And if we look at that, we can maximize production of coking coal and coke, even though we're in difficult markets, we're able to achieve 2 things. And that's why I've been showing you the result, and we talked about the year-to-date results. If there were no tax, and we look at the year-to-date results for the first 9 months of the year, we get to see that it's a positive result. And if we look at these 3 quarters, I would say that's more than -- there's hundreds of millions of profit having in mind the maximization of coal production and coke production.

The second advantage we hold and this will generate profits in the future. That is without deviating from these contracts and maintaining this pricing policy. We have more and more cases that we're able to take over coal supply contracts that were handled by other entities that are also commercial players, but they have to purchase that coal and that situation can't last for long.

Having in mind these price relationships, each one of these coking plants in Europe will generate losses. And they kind of want to reduce those losses. So they'll reduce their production levels, scale back production. And if those relationships don't change, perhaps they may have to apply extreme cases and turn off some of the coking plants, and this will create additional opportunities for us at JSW. So this is a cogent policy, having in mind the unique position JSW has. And since we are a producer of both coking coal and coke we have a totally different cost structure as opposed to the value change in the steel chain where many steel plants have their internal coking plants and they buy coking coal.

And so for them, the coking plant doesn't generate very much of an impact. So for them, the most important thing is the steel price. And so coke is only one of the things. And so they're calculating the price of sale at the end. We have a totally different structure because we have our own coking coal. We know the cost of producing that coking coal. And then we have sources -- 2 sources of revenue. So when we sell coking coal and we may sell coke to third parties. And so we'll continue to follow this approach.

And then one last slide. One last element on this slide. So these are the prices for steam coal. I don't think we need to dwell on this at length, having in mind the most recent 2 quarters. So we are in line with the Polish steam coal index, we are not above, we're not below. What is note worthy are 2 things.

I reiterated this at the most recent conference, we did not agree to negotiate prices this year in terms of steam coal deliveries or supplies. But since we work together with the domestic players. So our deliveries are being done in line with the contract. The deviances are not so major that we don't have any differences in our inventories. So we can say these contracts are being performed pretty well. And that's important because we have a market where there's a glut of steam coal in several tonnes of millions of coal. This is not a topic for conversation at today's conference.

So in November, December of last year, we agreed on certain things in terms of supplies of steam coal, and this is something that will bring benefit through the end of this year.

And so the next slide, the sales of coal produced in the group. And here, we distinguished between 2 streams, sales of coal to external customers and then sales of coal to our own coking plants. So in Q2 and Q3, we see an increase of 6%. This is primarily done through steam coal to a lesser extent, in coking coal, so it's rather stable there. But since Q3, this is when there's some bigger demand in the power sector.

So we can see that we've been able to sell a little bit more steam coal a couple of percentage points up. If we compare the 9 months of this year to the 9 months of last year, with respect to sales of coke external customers, we have a decline of 13.5%. Why? If you look at the black bars or part of the bars, we continue to be quite stable. So we're able to sell what we produce in more or less in the same period. So we're selling to international steel companies. So like Mittal in Poland, and it's all quite stable.

The decline you see is in steam coal. Why? Well, last year, despite the demanding period that JSW faced, we had certain mine catastrophes of the company since that wanted to maintain its total output against [ same ] what's happening on the steam coal where there was a lack of coal on the market. We were able to sell through spot contracts at better prices. So we increased in that period, the production of steam coal in the northern mines when it was still sensible. And so that way, we were able to fill the gap on the market. And the second thing we're able to utilize the spot market prices. And so it was an exceptional year in that sense. So now we're returning to normalcy and so we are maximizing the production of coking coal, and we're minimizing the production of steam coal.

If we look at the sales of coal to internal customers. If we compare Q2 and Q3, we're quite similar. We're stable here. So quarter-on-quarter, not much has changed. So we have regular coal supplies. And you can see our coke plants are operating on a stable basis.

If we look at the first 9 months of this year versus the first 9 months of last year, we can see a slight decline of roughly 5%. This is because in Q1, our coke plants weren't operating at full speed, they obtained that capacity in the subsequent months and so we're close to 100% of capacity utilization. So the difference is that Q1 was not a full production quarter this year.

If we look at the revenues on the sales of coal to external customers, as always, this is a compilation of the tonnages and the prices. And what we showed in terms of the prices of coking coal and steam coal, so we have a decline of 11.6% from Q2 to Q3 and we're down about 22.6% in the first 9 months of last year compared to the first 9 months of this year. So we can say, if we look at the average selling price, as I said, we're down by 20% for coking coal, whereas in the gray, you see the differences for steam coal. You have a slight increase of 2.6% from Q2 to Q3 is 2%. You can say basically these contracts are being performed on a stable conditions.

So we can see the subsequent paragraphs -- graph where you can say that there has been some pretty major increases in the price hikes on steam coal, and so they're up by 90% over the previous year. And we have a decline of coking coal prices of nearly 29%. And so if we compare these 2 periods, this is what you see, and this is in line with the global trends for prices of coking coal.

Next slide is about coke sales. If we look at Q2 and Q3 we have a decline of some 8%, some 80,000 tonnes. Our coke plants are operating at nearly production capacity. So these type of variations were volatility quarter-on-quarter. This is more a matter of accounting practice. So the ship -- the ships that we're sending out, if we're sending out at the end of June, and for some reason, the dispatchment takes place on the first of July. Then this is something that shifted to the next quarter.

So this is more or less the difference of 1 major ship for 2 Betamax ships, and this is basically a result of ongoing operating activity. So the stability that I'm talking about -- I'm not talking about quarterly variations, but you can see that as you compare the first 9 months of last year to the first time 9 months of this year, we're up by 2.3%. So we're trying to sell the products we have. So we're selling all of the production from the coking plants. And so -- we have this in our sales data, what we wanted to sell, and we've basically recovered the revenue from that.

If you look at the average coke sales price. So it's down by 20%. And I told you a few minutes ago about the various international pricing mechanisms. We are compliant with that market. We have our own pricing policy and our own goals for the future. And having in mind what our group consists of and what we want to achieve in subsequent quarters or over the next couple of years.

So if we look at the first 9 months of the -- this year and the previous year, we're down by some 33% in terms of coke sales prices. And so this is exactly what's happened on the coking market. In the last couple of years, coke prices have fallen much farther than coking coal prices, and they're more or less equivalent to the coking coal prices. If we look at the revenues on the sales of coke and hydrocarbons external customers, again, this is a compilation of tonnages and prices. And so price is the main reason why we have less revenue.

So Q2 to Q3, we have a decline of 28%, and we're down by 30%. If you look at the 9 months, first 9 months of 2022 to the first 9 months of 2023.

And then the last slide is about coal inventories. If we look at our inventory at the end of September, we had 771,000 tonnes, that's 23% up compared to the end of June. So the 770,000 tonnes, if we divide that up amongst the coke mines, so it's up by some 20%. And so we can see this in steam coal. We have to be aware that on account of geology, it's not possible for the mine to operate where quarter-on-quarter, we would have ideal stability that we are able to extract the same amount from underground every quarter, quarter in, quarter out. That never happens.

And so you can see that in the results presented by Mr. Pazdziorko, that the volumes are higher. And if we look at the steam coal market, we're not able to sell additional quantities. The good result is that our core contract has been performed and that's the main source of improvement, and we'll work on this for next year. But inventories of 771,000 tonnes is not anything that's exceptional.

Well, basically, if we want to operate smoothly in all of our mines and realize our contracts. This is kind of a technical inventory. If we look at coke inventory, and so of course, it's an increase of 30%, but that number doesn't really mean that much to us. If we look at the scale, we have of 3.5 million tonnes with 1.5 million tonnes being sent out by sea, having an inventory of 100-and-some-odd tonnes to 200,000, 300,000 tonnes. This is the type of inventory the company should have. We could say that the inventory at the previous quarter was dramatically low and made a risk for the handling of shipments. And we can say that in Q3, we were at the required minimum level. That's it from my side. Thank you.

[Edward Pazdziorko, executive]

Now we can go on to the investments of the JSW Group. So distinguished ladies and gentlemen. This is the topic that's the most important for every company, every business, and you can see whether or not we're building the future or not. So we have the following investments, CapEx in JSW Group, net of consolidation eliminations on an accrual basis. So Q3, we had CapEx of PLN 1.1 billion and versus Q2, we had an increase of 8%. We can say that in every segment, especially in the coal segment -- so in the coal segment and the other segments, we've seen increases.

So if we look at the first 9 months of this year to the first 9 months of the last year, we can say that our CapEx has touched PLN 3 billion, almost up to PLN 3.1 million -- PLN 3.1 billion. And comparing that to last year when we had PLN 1.9 billion or up by 62.5%. And you can see that in the most important coal segment in the coke segment, so we're increasing our CapEx. And I'll talk about those 2 core segments, which are of critical importance for our operations. And we can also see the increase in the other segments.

In JSR, so our renovation company or what we're doing in the northern mines, purchasing of Microsoft licenses and so on and forth. And if we look in the IT company. So we've been purchased PPE and payments for leases. So we can say that Q3, we had PLN 1.015 billion in CapEx. And so we are up by 3.1%. This is CapEx on a cash basis.

And if we look at the first 9 months of the year versus the first 9 of last year, we're up by 50.4%, so above PLN 3 billion compared to the same period of last year, the corresponding period last year.

And so if we look at the 2 major segments. So we have CapEx in JSW. This is the typical coal segment on an accrual basis. We had CapEx of PLN 887.5 million, and this was up over Q2 by 3.4%. We have seen increases expenditures for leases, expenditures -- expensable mining pits, and longwall outfitting and purchases of finished capital assets. And so if we look at the first 9 months of the year, we are above PLN 2.5 billion, which when compared to the corresponding period of 9 months of the last year, they're 72.9% higher. So each one of these segments saw a substantial increase starting with expensable mining pits, and so strategic horizontal and critical areas.

And so we had PLN 670 million to PLN 482 million. So it's quite substantial growth over the previous year. And so generally speaking, we can say that we've made purchases and we've done some longwall outfitting and we have mechanized shields. We're modernizing some more than PLN 150 million. And so we're buying nearly [ PLN 38 million ] we spent on longwall shares and transportation equipment. And so for the transportation of people and staff and then materials, we want to make sure that time of work is used efficiently and trying to overcome some of the difficulties we spent more than PLN 200 million there.

And then if we look at the capital expenditures for expensable mining pits and long fall outfitting were an increase of PLN 400 million. So it's PLN 1.2 billion we spent on that, and this was primarily for longwall outfitting.

And in the next segment, we have more than PLN 106 million more, and this is our expenditure for leases. As I said, we were able to increase that by some PLN 1.1 billion in the first 9 months of the year, our total CapEx.

And a second very important segment is JSW KOKS. On an accrual basis, we can see our capital expenditures. And so Q3 is a little bit over PLN 135 million, which is up by 3.3%. If we look at the first 9 months of the year, we can see that we had CapEx of PLN 373 million, and this was up by some PLN 30 million over the previous quarter. That's 8.7% higher as we're modernizing coking batteries for -- at the coking plant [indiscernible] in energy generation unit, power generation in Radlin as well as allowances.

And so this is what's been happening with our CapEx or investments. And you can see that we've been able to scale up those investments year in, year out. And basically, this is changing the future -- building the future of the company despite the impediments we encounter market impediments and others. And we also have methane and other geological factors to deal with, which were quite difficult.

And now we'll have the financial highlights of the group. I'd like to ask Mr. Robert Ostrowski to go ahead and present the subsequent slides on that subject.

[Robert Ostrowski, executive]

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. The first slide I would discuss is a composite picture later, I'll show you the drill-down data in Q3 and for the first 9 months of the year. Some data will be presented as rounded data.

As discussed previously, the group's revenue in Q3 PLN 3.4 billion, almost PLN 0.2 billion, down by 17.8%. Of course, Bartos said quite a bit about prices and the market context. I can say a few more words about that later. But after the first 9 months of the year, we can say that our revenue is nearly PLN 12 billion, which is down by 25%. Compared to the first 9 months of last year, Tier 1 [indiscernible] 2022 was an exceptional year in terms of the revenue and the income having in mind the nature of our product and as a total, the exceptional year. Then we have EBITDA net of nonrecurring events. So it's PLN 531 million, down by 61% versus Q2.

If we take into account, then the one-offs, it was PLN 1.028 billion. The first 9 months, it was PLN 3.8 billion, and if we compare it to the first 9 months of the previous year, it was down by 57.1%. And if we look at the EBIT result net of one-offs, it was PLN 4.6 billion.

If we look at net working capital, let me point out the information we present here on this slide. Basically is adjusted with respect to the balance sheet. One at the end of September, the PLN 6 billion has in mind the money we've invested in FIZ. So the closed-end investment fund but according to the standards for presentation of this fund. Those assets are carried as noncurrent assets, but having in mind the pricing policy, investment policy, we have liquids -- our investments are liquid in short term and can be liquidated within 12 months. So we treat this as a current asset, even though in the balance sheet is treated as noncurrent assets.

If we were to calculate the net working capital on a balance sheet basis, then at the end of September, we would have a negative result of PLN 2.4 billion.

The net result in Q3, we have a loss of PLN 1.2 billion, which comes from the fact that we had the windfall tax of almost PLN 1.6 billion. If we were to net out that results we would have a profit of PLN 95.5 million just for you to know. But the profit for the first 9 months of the year is PLN 845 million. But also including the windfall tax. Last year, we had a very high profit of [ 6 point ] -- nearly PLN 4 billion.

Let me come back briefly to the FIZ. So the closed-end fund [ cost ] represent this asset in a variety of ways. So we talk about them on a gross basis. So we have in mind also the investments that are run by the TFI, the fund management company, and so this is PLN 8.4 billion, but the net result in [indiscernible] PLN 5.3 billion in the stand-alone financial statements. And so on the liability side, in short-term liabilities, we have some PLN 3.3 billion, which is about [indiscernible] and that's because of transactions conducted by the entity managing that closed-end investment fund.

The next slide is about the change in sales revenues in Q3 versus Q2. Here, we can see a decline, so we're at PLN 3.4 billion, whereas in Q2, we were at PLN 4.1 billion.

What was contributed to that change? Let me start with the negative impacts First, we have the impact of coking coal price change and that PLN 393 million. So the average prices fell by 20.7%. So the average price is substantially lower compared to Q2.

The second thing, we have also the impact of coke price change and that's PLN 274 million. And again, that's down by 20%. And so down by some PLN 340. And we also have the impact of coke sales volume. So less coke, we was down by 70,000 tonnes and the total impact is PLN 131.6 million. And so that's the difference between the quarters.

We also have the impact of revenue, which is nearly -- for other things, which is nearly PLN 65 million this is hydrocarbons, so tar and benzol and here prices of tar fell as did the prices for benzol and the volume of benzol. But in tar, we had more volumes sold, but basically, our revenue fell in Q3.

What didn't fully offset but was positive, we had the impact of steam coal sales volume. It was up by some 87,000 tonnes tons in Q3. And then we also had the volume of coking coal sales volume up by PLN 44.3 million. And then we had a small impact of change in seeing coal sales prices of PLN 8.6 million. One thing that will be of interest to you is about the costs and here between quarters, Q2 -- sorry, Q2 and Q3, there is no radical change.

It's only -- it's less than 3%. So we had total cost of PLN 4.15 billion. And so materials were up by some PLN 60 million depreciation by nearly PLN 38 million and employee benefits were up by PLN 24 million. And then WeChat can't -- and then external services where this is somewhat related to third parties and third parties general services.

And so this is linked to some of the purchases we made for that purpose. So now I will spend a little more time on the cost differences between -- in the first 9 months of the year because it's by 31.5%. And here, you have PLN 11.89 billion. What is contributed to that computation of costs? The first thing which led to higher costs versus employee benefits and such as that makes the biggest impact, so it's up by PLN 1.4 billion.

And then so we have the results of the decisions made with the social parties at ASW. So the agreements that were signed in terms of raising employee benefits by 15.4%. We also see the one-off payments. We had 2 of them. So expensed in June and September last year, such a payment was made. And that payment was expensed in June '22. So we have an increase of PLN 165 million.

On top of that, over the first 9 months of this year, our employees basically works more on days off, and that was an increase of less than PLN 96 million. And so companies belonging to the group as a result of increasing the average had cut, so in PBS, Z and take -- well, this was -- they could have had more employment because our higher headcount because we had some attrition in the mines and we had -- because of retirement and we had to hire new people.

And then JSW COGS, we had an agreement between the management team and the social party where there was the salary was indexed. The second important line item in these costs that has grown compared to last year is the utilization of materials. So we have seen the inflationary-driven costs in all of the places where like materials are indexed.

We also did more quarter works on our own, so using our own employees. And we also had the materials that we were buying for that purpose. And we had higher usage of materials in order to maintain pits and to do the corridor works. The next cost line item are external services. And so they went up by some PLN 456 million. This is nearly by 36%, and that's primarily in JSW.

And that's because we bought more drilling services, transport services. And so this is part of the prices of these services and all done on a pure market basis. If you look at energy usage, where we have consumption, we have a higher price at JSW well, it was PLN 117 per megawatt hour. This is a result of the market environment.

But energy to a large extent is purchased on forward contracts. Even so our price increases are not so high, but if we look at '23 we bought less electricity. So distribution expenses grew by some PLN 55 per megawatt hour. And we felt the impact of higher thermal energy supplies. And this was seen by the condition by the results of our member companies. And so we can say that we also had higher expensed costs for outfitting longwalls.

And then I can also mention about taxes of nearly PLN 78 million, and this was caused primarily by the higher cost in JSW COGS because we had to -- have in mind the CO2 allowances that were to be retired, so some PLN 56 million. And then we also had the differences in energy prices of nearly PLN 10 million.

And so this is my commentary on the increases in JSW Group's expenses by nature in the first 9 months of 2022 over the first 9 months of 2023. This next slide is about mining cash cost, so it was PLN [ 740 and 27 ]. And so we had a slight decrease from PLN 745.32. What happened? Starting with the negative factors. We had higher costs of 15.89% for employee benefits for all of the reasons I referred to when I explained what was happening.

The second thing is consumption of energy. So we have this in compressed air and in electricity. And so we were buying more megawatt hours for electricity, so nearly 16. And then we had higher consumption materials for the mechanized yields. And then we had some factors that allowed us to reduce costs. So the most important thing was the impact of higher volumes.

So we were up by 3% in coal production by 3%. And so that improved things by PLN 21.72, then we also have renovation services. And then so external services, PLN 4.454 and then we have the other costs by nature of PLN 1.34. And so that's the information about the mining cash cost. Now if we will look at the cash conversion costs, which is also the cash cost. And so here, we can see that the cash conversion cost is up by nearly PLN 11 to PLN 320.81, and this is primarily because of employee benefits rising.

So this was a result of the salary agreement signed in August of this year between the management team and the social parties. Taxes and fees or charges are up by PLN 4.02. And this is because of the differences of electricity prices, where JSW cost was selling. So in Q3, we had a slightly less increase in terms of the shortage of CO2 allowances.

And we were able to use materials to a lesser extent. This doesn't include the coal input. So we also see the costs minus depreciation, and this is because of higher transportation costs, where this was purchased outside of the group. And then we have external services that are down, primarily renovation services.

And so the results is the increase in price per tonne in excess of PLN 11 or in excess of 10. And so we have a slide that summarizes the impact start -- we can start at the bottom, so we can see the mining cash cost impact. So the impact of expenses saw us move up by PLN 16.77 watts, whereas the impact of Alan reduced the price by PLN 21.72. If we look at cash conversion costs, it was up because of expenses and because of what happened with volume.

And I've already discussed this, the reasons for that on previous slides. Now if you look at some of the EBITDA drivers in Q3 compared to Q2. And so what's the most important. So the volume and the prices cost tends to fall by PLN 262 million. And so coking coal prices were down by a high amount of PLN 394 million.

And the volume was up by some 44,000 tonnes. And for steam coal, it was up by nearly 60,000 tonnes. So the major factors led to a shift. And then we had coke sales volume in price, and that was the biggest impact of nearly PLN 460 million. So contract prices fell by PLN 200-some-odd million. And then the volume was down by 32,000 tonnes. And so this is the combined impact. If we look at other sales, so these are hydrocarbons. And that's why this factor is negative they may have the impact of cost by nearly [ PLN 215 ] million. This was discussed.

And if we look at the impact of the results on other activities in total negative PLN 85 million. And here, we have other revenue of PLN 5 million and other costs were up by PLN 33 million. And so we had to an impairment charge. And so the impact of other activities, we have FX differences, operational things.

And so that was up by some PLN 55 million. And so then we have PLN 54 million because of the evaluation or mark-to-market valuation of the assets in the fields. And so we have the changes in products and then depreciation and then you have basically the EBITDA in the accounting books of PLN 431 million. And then we have nonrecurring events that we incorporate in the adjustment, which is PLN 197 million.

This is an upward adjustment above all. We have the additional bonus paid out PLN 275 million. And the PLN 34 million for the one-off bonus and then the PLN 43 million and more than PLN 20 million in our minds. And so the EBITDA without these one-offs would have been PLN 1.28 billion. And then we have the segmental impact on EBITDA.

So we can talk about what happened on the income side, revenue side and cost side, taken jointly, it's down by PLN 627 million. And Coke, it's down by PLN 171 million. Other segments is negligible at PLN 7.4 million. And if we look at the consolidation elimination, it's PLN 32.7 million. And so one-offs of PLN 487 million.

Now we have a slide, which shows the working capital as of 30 September. And have in mind what I caveat mentioned at the very beginning in terms of how we treat this closed-end investment fund. So we have the gross value. And then on the liability side, we have costs with respect to that fund. So assets at the beginning of the quarter was PLN 30.4 billion. And so the adjustments for noncurrent assets is PLN 10.3 billion. And then we have the PLN 3.5 billion for the first.

And so we have the fixed capital of PLN 20.3 billion. So PPE, intangible assets and other noncurrent assets. So in other noncurrent assets, we have gross value of the fund of PLN 8.7 billion. And so we treat that these assets in our management accounts as a liquid asset. So at the end, of September were negative in the rent at PLN 2.4 billion.

So if you look at the short term and looking at the assets at the other side and the liabilities on the short term. And so we have liabilities toward the closed-end investment fund of PLN 3.3 billion. And then we have trade and other receivables of PLN 1.69 billion. And so this is the windfall tax at the end of September. And this is something that also impacts or affects the working capital.

And so the payment took place in the middle of November. And now we have a slide which talks about the 2 major ratios we track. And so this is fixed capitals on current assets ratio as we look on an accounting basis and on an adjusted basis. So we're below 1 on an accounting basis. But if we adjust it for the assets in the first, it's 1.17, which is more than correct.

Then in net debt loans, borrowings and leases cash -- minus cash at the end of the period. So in the management accounts and otherwise, it's a negative value, which is the proper way of shaping the value of this ratio. And the last slide, which talks about the cash flow in the group. So here, at the end of June, we had PLN 4.7 billion and it's a little higher at the end of September at [ PLN 4.8 billion almost PLN 9 billion ]. So we had PLN 109 million profit before tax, then depreciation and amortization, the difference was PLN 445 million, PLN 46 million the changes in inventories, which had a negative value of nearly PLN 180 million.

Then we have changes in trade and other receivables of PLN BRL 368 million. So we have more there. And we've also increased the trade and other liabilities by PLN 302 million almost. Then we have other operating cash flow of PLN 103 million. And then we have the investments. So the payment of cash of PLN 883 million. This is to acquire permanent assets.

And so repayment of loans and borrowings was up by nearly PLN 12 million and then lease payments up by PLN 53 million. And then we have other financing cash flows and FX differences, and this is in the black at nearly PLN 144 million. And that's it in terms of the financial highlights of the JSW Group in Q3. Thank you.

[Tomasz Cudny, executive]

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. This was the core portion of our presentation, where we wanted to show you our results, we can see that the environment shows that we need to be stable. And you can see where we are after these 9 months. But despite difficulties, we continue to generate a profit. And I wanted to say, when we talk about our results. We had some of the events from last year, which were very difficult and they -- we had the loss of life.

And one of the places was the Pniówek mine, where we had 7 of our employees who were underground. This year was also a year in which we've been fighting in order to reach those people, and we were able to achieve that goal. And I would like to thank here the mine management and the employees, who prepared to the various stages of that rescue effort. It was broken down into 2 stages.

We were able to reach those persons. And nobody has been left behind as we speak in our mining target, we've been able to wrap up that very difficult phase that was difficult for the employees and for the people, for the combines. And so nobody has been left behind. So I'd like to say to the central rescue mine workers station, I've seen your full commitment and engagement inside was there with them, and I tried to assist that with my experience.

And I also saw that commitment and engagement to run that rescue campaign. So I'd like to thank you very warmly. All of the people were involved and that the people from the fire service from our rescue that we also received a special truck in order to extract to do the work underground. And we were also supported -- with the support of dogs, we were able to do all of that work. I'd like to thank you for all of your support despite the very difficult conditions. And so I'd like to thank the employees for prepare this presentation.

And so I know that we have a number of questions. that were presented. So we'd like to respond to those questions.

[Unknown Attendee]

[Operator Instructions]

[Interpreter] So the first question. Are you planning or analyzing any efforts having in mind the very negative relationship between coking coal prices and coal prices?

Well, this question is to me. I think we've mentioned this during the presentation. We're fully aware that the relationship of these prices is unfavorable. And we are a group that's unique because we have integrated ourselves with our coking plants differently. So we have our own coal.

And we're not just part of the steel production costs as if we are a member of the steel mill. So most of the coking plants built across the world are integrated with steel mills. So they buy coal and then they convert that coal into coke. And this is the batch for the furnace.

And so only 5% of the coking plants or merchant cokers like ours. And that's why we're a unique group. What can we do? The market is basically being defined by the glut. And so if this deal industry, primarily in Europe but across the world, that there's very limited growth in Europe. Unfortunately, we're seeing not growth, but declines.

So these cokers, internal cokers are able to satisfy the need of steel plants. And that has an impact on prices.

Of course, this is something that's measurable. But there is a group of steel plants that don't have their own coking plants. So we supply coke in Europe and outside of Europe. And so having in mind even these negative relations, we want to be consistent in pursuing our policy, all of the contracts that we've entered into will be fulfilled in full. And sometimes, this is different from what our competition is doing with very high coking coal prices and sometimes they're reducing the coking output to the minimum in a technological basis.

And as I said, this can lead to extreme solutions. So some of the assets may no longer have a reason to exist. We see this is an opportunity for us. The fact that we're not deviating from our contracts or shorting our responsibilities under our contractual arrangements. We're showing that you can take a rely on this, both in Europe and outside of Europe, as we maximize coking coal owners of coke production.

So we're acting at a maximum we're going to be. As long as we have a physical sales capabilities for coke will continue to act this way. And when we -- other producers aren't able to withstand this competition, we're able to withstand the competition. This is an opportunity for us, maybe not in the short term, but certainly in the medium to long term.

So if over the long period of time, we're going to have the same relations ratios of prices, well, then we can say that not everybody is going to be able to perform on this market. And JSW as a large, strong group in the longer term, can win. And maybe I won't talk about the details. But in Europe, we already see things like this happening that next year, we'll have the ability to sell 700,000 more tonnes into European steel plants, customer gradually taking over orders that were previously fulfilled by other coking plants.

And we'll do that as just to be. Thank you.

Another question that is replicated many times is about our Samita decision. How important is it that they are suspending their operations? Can I go? And so what sort of things can happen with the output. So this is something we anticipated. This was information reported yesterday.

And so it was quite strongly reported in the media. I can tell you the following thing. As the management of JSW having a strategic buyer in the form of ArcelorMittal and ArcelorMittal, which has a local supplier of Copco, a strategic one, the largest one of coking coal. Well, we have very close relations, very good partnership relations. And we talk about these type of situations and have been doing so for a longer period of time.

And as a group, as a management, we're fully aware of what's happening. And this is not information that surprises us. Perhaps it was published yesterday, but I'm not authorized to speak about the details. But I can say and calm you that we've been talking about this for a longer period of time. And there's a single direction here.

Well certain ideas have been put in place certain solutions, which should allow us with the volumes we had in the long-term contract, which we reported the fact that we signed a new contract with ArcelorMittal until 2028. We had specific volumes, long-term contract. Well, this level will be maintained in the volume for next year despite this decision made by our ArcelorMittal. The volumes of coal supply should be maintained from JSW, that's what I can tell you. Everything else is in strategy and secrecy, commercial secrecy in terms of the 2 largest companies in Europe and certain solutions have been developed and the purpose is for this cooperation to continue without any major difficulties.

Next question for production. What's the production plan in Q3 and if this was different from the planned level, what was the reason? The production plan, we assume around 3.6 million tonnes and it was slightly lower. It was roughly PLN 3.4 million. The reasons were mostly difficulties linked to operations and geological impediments in 2 mines in 1 section in Budryk. We had some faults there. And so MJ, we have difficult mining conditions in terms of what we find in the longwall and in Pniówek, we had some delocations or dislocations.

And so this is linked to higher prevention activities with respect to methane. Thank you.

How do you see the competitive position of JSW steam coal versus imported coal? What is the price ratio of these 2 products from the point of view of the final customer incorporating all costs?

So starting from the back end, if we look at all of the costs, in our case, having in mind mines where the output really [indiscernible] and Budryk. It's very difficult to make a special calculation of the cost just for steam coal because technically, technologically, geologically, it's not possible to produce only steam coal and the strategy we show going through 2030 assumes that will always have a certain percentage of our production in the form of steam coal, which is kind of a byproduct and has a value in the market. So it would be difficult to determine a separate cost for that.

We have data to all of the costs. We give you the mining cash cost on the combined cost. But we look at the cost of individual mines, it would be difficult to separate that, flesh that out and reflect only on Sinko.

If I remember, the first part of the question, which is about the competitiveness of our coal versus others internationally. If we look at production in Poland, we can say that 2.5 million tonnes produced for gas for the steam coal is a small position.

We're not the market maker or the price maker. Other entities are doing so. And so the national market has the following distinction that we have contracts signed for annual periods with the commercial power sector players. And so we have the price conditions being set up for 2024, as was the case 1 year ago that we had the conditions for 2023.

And so if we're looking at what's happening and what might happen on the international market. So we have spot prices, which can be quite volatile. And so the price might be $120. And 1 year ago, we had a price of $300. So it's very difficult to find some sort of competitiveness here since you have an annual contract. Where we have some average indices, we have predictions of what's going to happen for -- on these indices for future periods.

And on the other hand, you have large commercial power players where the coal purchase is for them a major cost. It's very difficult to say anything about a very strong correlation, while the contract is signed, it's performed over the course of the year, and we have to assume that international crisis can move upwards, can move downwards. And so, if this price deviation is substantial, then the parties can always sit down and negotiate.

And this is what happened in 2022, where those contracts were renegotiated and prices were raised for JSW because the international prices had jumped up so strongly, but some of those contracts -- well, all of those contracts were renegotiated by the coal suppliers to the sector -- commercial power sector.

The next question is about methane. When we'll be able to learn about the great for the methane tanks? Ladies and gentlemen, this talks being held in the Council of Europe, the European Parliament. And well, as we've seen from the media. Well, there's the methane regulation that has been published. And based on the information from the parliament, we can say that there's a ban from 1 January 2025 on the issuance of these things.

And so certain regulations should be implemented in terms of to ensure that the ban on emissions and the ventilation or ventilated air is properly handled. So if we looked at the financial side of things, nothing has changed. The regulation doesn't speak on that subject. The duty of every member state is to embrace regulations and define those rates. Based on the information we have today, we don't know what does that rate would be.

The next question, how can we explain the market situation in October '23 when the coke price. So a product that's more sophisticated is lower than coking coal.

Well, we've already responded to that question. It's not just a matter of October. It's a matter of what's happened over a long period of time? The relationship is not very favorable to Coke. In October, we can say that the extreme showed up. And it was a very extreme situation, if you look just at the numbers that coal was substantially higher than blast furnace coke.

And that's a product that takes a lot more effort to produce. And so October was exceptional or clearly showed that. But this is a situation we've been dealing with for a longer period of time. The question is what is the underlying reason or cause? Well, we've already said that we have the coking -- well, we can say coking market is quite different. Only 5% is actually out for sale on the open market.

So that's 30 million tonnes on the market. And so if the demand falls, then the prices fall and integrated players work primarily for their steel mills. And so -- and that's justified by first steel mills that they reduce the amount of coal they buy from the outside world. So that's the first element contributing to this.

And this is primarily helping in Europe. The second thing is the relatively low level of coke price. We're talking about the Chinese market. Well, this is caused by totally different factors. China following the geopolitical changes having in mind the Ukrainian conflict and then since Russia isn't sending communities commodities to Ukraine to EU. Well, this means that commodities flow totally different. And so they have much more and cheaper coal from Russia and Mongolia than the official indices and Australian producers.

So China has less expensive coal. And this is a result of a shift in the geopolitical arrangement. And that's why in China, things could be much slower. And so our coke game plans are able to generate a positive margin. We're talking about blast furnace coke things a little bit different from foundry coke producers, but that's something totally different. But even with cheaper coal inputs, Chinese cokers aren't generating positive returns. So the prices are low.

So there's no pressure on semisoft, but there is pressure on the heart coking coal like in Australia because the supply is limited and the major beneficiary or driver of this price is the Indian market because India needs this commodity in large quantities. And so there's no downward price pressure. And of course, this is something that will evolve week by week, day by day. But so that's why hard coking coal continues to have a very buoyant price level.

Well, there are many other factors. These are the 3 major factors whereas the Indian market, which is rise raising crisis for coking coal. And then we have the merchant cokers in Europe and China that are not able to sell their coke or maybe they don't have less expensive inputs, and that's why the relationship, price relationship is totally distorted. This is not just October. This is a situation that's been going on for a longer period of time.

I think this should suffice as a response.

So the next question about production. What is the production potential for coking coal and steam coal over now and over the next 3 years? What is the production plan for 2024, 2026 in terms of reaching the strategy of having more than 16 million tonnes in 2030?

So ladies and gentlemen, as we know, our strategy was approved at the beginning of 2022. After it was approved, we had the mine accidents in 2 mines in Zofiówka and Pniówek. In previous reports and conferences, we talked about that after analyzing the impact of these events. And we said that for the next 2 years, we will suffer the impact of that, and that's still happening.

And so in 2024, we're actually doing some of the analysis for that year. Looking at the plans. If we looked at extraction level or the mine output, we continue to maintain that by the end of that production period that we should be up to 16 million tonnes. The next question it is linked to CapEx. What are your expectations in terms of CapEx for 2024, higher, lower, similar to 2023? As I mentioned, when we talk about investments, today -- well, if you combine this with the previous question, we're analyzing this subject because this is the market environment and certain things will have an impact on that.

So the CapEx will be aligned to continuing our investments in this year. So most investments are of a strategic nature. And so this is all about the future of the company and gaining access to new areas. And that's why the investments will be made. So I would say it's probably going to be close to the same level.

Now there's question about windfall tax. Is it possible that it's still going to be enforced and may be assessed in 2024? So looking at the current lose, this should not take place in 2024.

Then we have another question about the short-term goal of 14 million tonnes of production in 2023. Are you maintaining its guidance in terms of the production in 2023? Ladies and gentlemen, at present, as you know, we had talked about the force measure in one of our mines. And from the combined mine of [ Katowice, Jastrzebska ], well we had a fire there. And that means that we had to seal a longwall for a certain period of time and that we couldn't produce the production from that longwall is important.

And that's why in 2023, we'll be under -- we'll be under 14 million tonnes in terms of the output. Then we have another question for costs, how do you intend to reduce your OpEx? So when you're in a mining company working underground and you have to have conditions for people and machines to work, we are capital-intensive, energy-intensive labor-intensive industry.

And so all the things that we have in our strategy, we're doing what we can to reduce the costs or optimize processes, which are there to lead to relatively speaking, lower OpEx, and this work is being done. So that in terms of moving methane, remain methane drainage from associated mines. And so we want to be able to capture that methane and then use the energy and that would replace the energy we buy from elsewhere.

And this is an example of that activity being taken. And then we have building central air conditioning unit, which should make it possible for our employees to work underground. We have high temperatures underground. And in certain borderline conditions, it's not possible to conduct mining operations at all. And so having basically air conditioning units means that we can extend the working hours of our people and machinery, and this is part of our CapEx now -- and in the future.

And so we also have the passive capacity and other elements efforts that we're taking to optimize cost and also the amount of our CapEx. And so having more machines underground, what this means that we have more automated production. It's supported by machines. And that means in subsequent years, maybe it won't have a direct impact on reducing costs, but it should improve production, and that should mean that we'll have higher per capita output.

And so a lot of things are being done here as we attempt to build our own generation of assets and renewable energy sources. And that means that we should make savings on electricity costs. Let me remind you that the costs of PLN 250 million, PLN 260 million per quarter. So these type of initiatives will certainly, at the end of the day, allow us to optimize and reduce our costs.

Many investors are asking about the dividend, maybe not from 2022, but from 2023 to be paid out in 2024. Well the question is could -- our stabilization fund be used to pay out a dividend in 2024? So the essence of setting up our cost and in fund was clearly defined and communicated. The funds here that when we have very good market conditions that we invest the money for this rainy day fund to make it possible for the company in the groups and the companies in the group to continue their operations, we saw something like that happening in 2020.

2021, we may have had COVID. So the money from that fund were used for that purpose. But the Articles of Association of that fund don't allow or don't contemplate the utilization of these funds for the purpose of paying a dividend itself.

Now a question about production. Could I ask for an update about? Is it realistic to generate 2.5 million tons of output over the next few years? Or is it possible that new geological problems would make it impossible to increase the run rate and both of the OpEx could be lost and it would be necessary to set up additional loan loss provisions, very well provisions or allowances.

So we've spoken many times about the complicated tectonics of this deposit at present. If we look at the surveys being done. So in geological nomenclature, we can say this is ANB. So this gives you a tended 20% error rate. So the information we get from that. But unfortunately, generating 2.5 million tonnes per annum is not possible. And so the surveys in this approach were the basis for changing how this is organization and what was originally as a stand-alone mine.

And that's why it became one of the sections of 3-section line. And above all, this enables us to look at costs and CapEx differently, and we are reducing it to the level that the conditions allow us to do. So we continue to do analysis. And in order to utilize that all of the CapEx to the maximum in terms of all the CapEx that we've incurred thus far to ensure that we'll be able to have a rational approach to this theme.

The next question is about expectations for 2024. What are your assumptions about mining cash cost? And the trade unions are asking for 1% above inflation increase. And what do you think about the energy costs in 2024 versus 2023? As I said previously, all of the analysis is being done now, such that we can put together this plan for 2024. If we think about the request of the social parties, the management met through the steering committee.

And this motion was discussed. And that's why further analysis is being done having in mind the plans for 2024? If we look at energy prices, generally speaking, at present, we assume that costs will grow by 15% in total. So this is energy cost plus distribution. So the weighted average cost will be around PLN 720 per megawatt hour.

And this would be up by PLN 123 per megawatt hour over the current price. Those are all the questions that we received if those are all the questions, I'm sure that's some new questions might arise or might be submitted. And so our IR relations Investor Relations office. We'll await your questions and we'll respond to your questions.

So if that's it, I'd like to thank you very cordially. I'd like to thank the employees of the company for preparing this conference, the results conference and we wanted to present the situation of the company. And I think that's what we've done today. And having in mind all these difficulties and the various difficulties that we face as a company, we want to show you that we have a stable company that we have a view on what's happening externally, internally and the profit that we generated nearly PLN 1 billion shows the strength of this company.

And the money that we have on a separate accounts. And so we'll always have difficulties. But the main thing is for us to be able to react on a timely basis. And for us to make do with markets. So thank you very much for today's conference.