The Government implores the companies in the energy sector to aid him in saving Polish mines. Polish energy companies, however, do not want to partake in the Government’s program. The boards of three energy companies: Tauron, Energy and Polish Energy Group, have already expressed their reluctance to the plans of mining industry rescue. Is the Government able to force listed companies to invest in the mines in Silesia, should the Government do it and does it have a right to?
What is the idea of the Government?
Nowa Kompania Węglowa (a new version of Poland’s largest coal mining group) is to take unprofitable mines over from the old company. The shares of Nowa Kompania Węglowa would be held by energy companies – e.g. PGE would take up shares of the value of 400 million PLN. Another 500 million – Energa, PGNiG and Towarzystwo Finansowe Silesia. 600 million PLN is to be added by Fundusz Inwestycji Polskich Przedsiębiorstw (Investment Fund of Polish Enterprises) managed by Polskie Inwestycje Rozwojowe (Polish Development Investments).
According to Maciej Bukowski, President of the Warsaw Institute for Economic Studies, there are two possible scenarios after the acquisition of mines by the energy sector.
‘If we combined these two sectors, we could imagine one scenario – energy companies taking over Kompania Węglowa and transforming it into a new, improved company by restructuring it, e.g. laying off two-thirds of the people working there and closing mines that do not promise to be cost-effective, focusing mining capacity only in those that are profitable instead. On the other hand, we can easily imagine a different scenario. By means of profits gained thanks to the monopoly, an unprofitable mining sector is being subsidizes, reducing its investment opportunities. And in future, when the market opens – as it will, because the Energy Union will be created, i.e. a fusion of our market with the markets of neighbouring countries – it will lose competitiveness and in consequence the disease of the mining sector will spread onto the energy sector, bringing about a bankruptcy of the Polish energy companies’, comments Maciej Bukowski.
