Coal mine (photo: Jakub Orzechowski / Agencja Gazeta)
Even by over 18 percent. On Tuesday, shares of the Australian company Prairie Mining on the Polish stock exchange were ticking. The situation from the end of March is repeated. And then, today, the minds of stock market players lit up the news about the sale of assets of Prairie Mining Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa (JSW).
The sharp rise in pricing of the Prairie Mining stock seems to be connected with the statements of Daniel Ozone, President of JSW, published on Monday evening. In an interview with PAP Biznes, he spoke about his company’s intentions regarding Prairie Mining’s assets.
– We analyze all Prairie assets in Poland, although assets in the Lublin region are more distant, complicated. I would like us to be able to make certain decisions in July. Various options are possible: theoretically, there is an option to take over the entire Prairie, as well as individual assets, because each concession is in a subsidiary – Daniel Ozon explained.
These words, together with the additional explanations of the president who told PAP how he wants to finance the purchase of assets from Australians and that the decision to buy JSW would like to take place in July, caused the Prairie Mining course to start on Tuesday. A few moments after the start of the session, the shares of the Australian company cost over 18 percent. more than on Monday at closing. Moments later, they were a bit cheaper, but they still gain a lot.
What does JSW want to buy from Prairie Mining?
Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa (JSW) wants to buy from Prairie Mining above all the Karbonia company, which has a mining license for the closed Dębieńsko mine located south of Gliwice. Australians have it since 2016 – they bought it for 2 million euros from the bankruptcy of NWR.
The Dębieńsko mine was established in 1898 and operated until 2000. In 2006, it was bought by the Czech coal concern NWR, which two years later received a 50-year mining license. Since October 2016 , design work in Dębieńsk has been carried out by Prairie Mining.
– The new Dębieńsko mine will extract high quality type 35 coal. The evaluation study published in March 2017 showed an average operating cost of $ 47 / ton with a stable production of 2.6 million tonnes. This will be the lowest production cost of coking coal delivered to markets in Central Europe, according to Prairie Mining’s press release from February.
The Dębieńsko mine is ideally suited to the JSW portfolio. Let us recall the coal company that specializes in the extraction of coking coal used in metallurgy. He also wants to significantly increase his extraction. It will be difficult to do without a new mine.
Prairie Mining also wanted to build a coal mine Jan Karski in the province Lublin. The facility was to be built near the place where the mine is being led by the Bogdanka mine and extracting steam coal.
Prairie Mining in a dispute with the Ministry of the Environment
Importantly, Prairie Mining shares grow after strong declines at the end of May – this is clearly seen in the chart below.
Quotes Prairie Mining Stooq.pl
The shares of the Australian company were then cheap because of the information that the Ministry of Environment (Ministry of Environment) rejected the request of Prairie Mining Limited for changes in the concession for the Dębieńsko project. The resort does not agree that the Australians will postpone the deadline for starting production in the mine for 2025. Earlier, Prairie Mining was to launch it in January this year.
-. Prairie is convinced that the reasons for the decision are flawed and do not take into account legal requirements, public interest, company facts and change requests, which provides further evidence of discriminatory treatment of Prairie as a foreign investor in Poland – we read in a company statement from the end of May .
In addition, the company added that the ministry needed 17 months to issue a decision, while it was legally obliged to respond to the request within two months.
The Ministry of the Environment also has doubts about signing an agreement with the Australians on the so-called mining use in the case of the Jan Karski mine. Without it, the construction of a new facility is impossible. At the beginning of April, Prairie reported that it had begun court action against the Ministry of the Environment due to the failure to grant mining rights in the area covered by the law, including the planned mine, Jan Karski.
All this suggests that our government is not sympathetic to Prairie Mining’s investments in Poland. It seems that it is trying to force the company to sell assets controlled by the JSW state. Risky game – it can end with another expensive process and compensation for a foreign investor.
The text comes from the blog PortalTechnologiczny.pl .