GDANSK (Reuters) - Polish miner JSW will focus on increasing the extraction of coking coal, and does not plan on expansion through energy company acquisitions, CEO Tomasz Cudny said on Thursday.
"Today our actions are directed to increase extraction of our type of coal, we're speaking of coking coal. When it comes to the energy market, we are not planning any acquisitions," said Cudny on a conference call.
Cudny's comments that the company plans to focus on boosting coking coal extraction, which is used in steelmaking, follow a fire in one of its mines in March, which prompted it to cut its 2023 production output forecast by 250,000 tons.
In November, it forecast production of 14 million tons this year. In the first six months, JSW produced 6.7 million tons.
On Wednesday, the company reported second-quarter coking coal production edged up 1.4% to 2.7 million tonnes from the prior quarter, while revenue from sales to external recipients slumped to 1.87 billion zlotys ($436.74 million) from 2.16 billion in the first quarter.
Net profit in the second-quarter fell 67% to 780.6 million zlotys from the prior year, with core profit tumbling to 3.33 billion zlotys versus 5.97 billion zlotys in the same period last year.
Members of the management board pointed out on the call that last year's results had benefited from favourable macroeconomic conditions, including a spike in the price of coal after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"We had used that moment and the effects could be seen in our results from the year 2022," Cudny said.
($1 = 4.2817 zlotys)