Polish energy stocks fall after government hints at dropping plan to carve out coal assets

Stocks of Polish state-controlled energy companies fell sharply on the Warsaw Stock Exchange on April 10 after a government official hinted at dropping the previous administration's plan to move the companies’ burdensome coal assets to a separate entity.

The plan assumed spinning off coal assets to the National Energy Security Agency (NABE), which would secure their operation and maintenance before gradually retiring them in line with Poland’s overarching strategy to reduce coal’s share in electricity generation. 

Relieved from the burden of coal assets, the companies – PGE, Tauron, and Enea – would be better positioned to attract green financing, it was hoped.

But Industry Minister Marzena Czarnecka said in an interview on April 10 that the previous government “wasted time” trying to establish the NABE and is working on an alternative solution now.

“The NABE project will not be implemented. [We will] link coal-fired power plants with specific mines instead,” Czarnecka told the newspaper Rzeczpospolita.

Despite the minister’s adding that the plan is still in a very early stage of development and legal analysis, stocks of PGE, Tauron, and Enea all fell sharply on the Warsaw bourse.

The stock price of Poland’s biggest energy company PGE fell 8.56% as trading closed. Enea’s stock price declined 6.75%. Tauron proved the least exposed, as its stock price slid just 1.36%.

The stock exchange’s energy index WIG-Energia – which is 80%-dominated by the three state-controlled companies in question – fell 4.89%. 

Czarnecka also said that “in July, we should present a plan to assign specific mines to specific power plants. In September, we will present legal solutions for implementing this idea.”

Poland’s energy generation sector remains heavily dominated by coal and lignite, which make up over 60% of the country’s energy mix.

Major investments in nuclear power and offshore wind are expected to reduce coal's share in the energy mix to below 20% in 2040 and thus bring down climate-harming emissions.

Still, Poland's government is wary of the costs of the bloc's climate policy – transitioning away from coal to low-carbon energy sources in particular – that the still coal-reliant country is going to incur. 

Those costs could exceed PLN500bn (€115.39bn) in "the coming years," said Climate and Environment Minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska in February.