Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – The government wants coal mines to cut capacity. In exchange, it wants to give Kompania Weglowa more time to pay back debts.
The Ministry of Economy is preparing the strategy for the mining sector. Pawel Poncyljusz, the deputy Minister of Economy, said that it could be ready as early as this month. There will be several ideas presented in the document for the Kompania Weglowa (KW) to get PLN 400m (EUR 103.2m).
“One option is that KW sells two mines to Weglokoks. KW would get funds. The problem of export coal would be solved because today the export coal is cheaper than the Polish one. We are also discussing with the Ministry of the Treasure other possibilities for KW to raise funds, including selling it a stake of PKW coal group”, Pawel Poncyljusz said.
PKE energy company owns a controlling stake in PKW, while the rest – KW. It has not been decided yet whether the shares would be sold to an investor or listed on the stock exchange.
KW may also get more time to pay back its debts.
“There is no danger that KW loses liquidity right now but in 2008 it can have problems with its debts. We want to prolong the deadline to pay back its debts against the budget from 2010 to 2015”, Pawel Poncyljusz added.
The debts amount to PLN 3 billion. KW had PLN 6m of net income after the first half of the year. The plans were several times higher. However, the ministry would like KW and the whole sector to cut production.
“Demand for coal will fall to 80m tons a year till the year 2015. Moreover, we can spend about 5m tons for clean technologies of coal production and exports in 2012. The demand will not be bigger”, the deputy Minister stressed.
Last year, coal sales exceeded 94m tons.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.258)