Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa with a record-breaking profit
Despite the difficult, volatile market environment we faced in 2022, the Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa Group earned a net profit of nearly PLN 7.6 billion, almost PLN 6.6 billion higher than the net profit earned in 2021. This is the best result in the company's history.
Consolidated EBITDA stood at PLN 10.6 billion. In 2021 EBIDTA amounted to PLN 2.5 billion.
“2022 has shown that we can cope in a highly volatile and unpredictable geopolitical environment. 2022 will be remembered as the year that dramatically changed the face of the global economy. The new geopolitical situation in Europe created uncertainty for steelmakers, giving impetus in March 2022 to a short-lived record increase in coking coal prices to over 600 USD/ton. In the following months, the prices steadily declined. In the second half of the year, we struggled with a drastic reduction of steel production in the EU, the shutdown of blast furnaces, the limited availability of seaports amid an oversupply of coke in the European market, and the uncertainty of market developments amid the threat of an energy crisis and rising costs," says Tomasz Cudny, President of the Management Board of Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa S.A. “To face such dynamic changes we constantly revised the JSW Group’s objectives to align them to the constantly evolving market situation. Our record-breaking financial results are chiefly the outcome of the hard work of our employees and skillful navigation in the volatile coking coal and coke market," added Tomasz Cudny, President of JSW S.A.
The year 2022 was also a period of tragic events at the JSW Group, at the Pniówek and Zofiówka mines and the Przyjaźń Coking Plant. Despite numerous difficulties due to force majeure, JSW S.A. achieved its planned coal output of 14.1 million tons. This is 0.3 million tons more coal than in 2021. In contrast, coke production was 3.2 million tons, down 13 percent from a year earlier.
In the period in question, the prices of coking coal and coke rose by almost 144 percent and 72 percent, respectively, compared to the previous year. This resulted in 91 percent higher total sales revenues compared to 2021, which stood at nearly PLN 20.2 billion.
In 2022, Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa's capital expenditures on investments in property, plant and equipment of approx. PLN 2 billion were 48.8 percent higher than in the same period in 2021. The expenditures were primarily earmarked for expansion and construction of new levels at the mines to secure current and future production capacities. Capital expenditures of other Group companies in 2022 amounted to PLN 645.3 million, higher than those incurred in the corresponding period of 2021 by approx. 85 percent. The higher capital expenditures are associated, among others, with modernization of coke oven battery no. 4 at the Przyjaźń Coking Plant in Dąbrowa Górnicza and construction of a power unit at the Radlin Coking Plant.
The JSW Group consistently sets aside a portion of generated cash surpluses in the JSW Stabilization Closed-end Investment Fund (“FIZ”), which was established specifically for this purpose, during periods of prosperity.
In 2022, the Company contributed a total of PLN 4.2 billion in cash to the JSW Stabilization FIZ. At the end of 2022, the Fund's net assets amounted to PLN 4.9 billion. This fund acts as the JSW Group’s “insurance policy for the future”. It will support us during a possible period of adverse market conditions. It will stabilize the Company’s liquidity enabling it to maintain the continuity of its operating and investment processes.
The unwavering pursuit of the JSW Strategy in 2022-2030 adopted last year played a significant role in generating the JSW Group’s robust performance in 2022. JSW not only reached its 2022 operating and financial targets but is also successfully pursuing the tenets of its environmental strategy whereby it intends to attain climate neutrality by 2050. Its most important component is the methane emissions reduction program for its economic utilization in energy production. Its efforts have attracted appreciation from the European Union, which has lent support in the amount of nearly EUR 11 million to the project prepared for the Pniówek Mine, making it a record-breaking subsidy in the history of the Polish mining industry.
In 2022 JSW S.A. started, for the first time, reporting on climate issues in the international CDP rating and received a high "C" rating, ahead of all mining companies in Poland. Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa S.A. was also ranked among the most climate-conscious companies in the 4th edition of the Company Climate Awareness Survey, which awarded JSW fourth place among 152 listed companies.
