April 10, 2024 - Shares in Polish power utilities plunged the most in 18 months after a senior government official outlined plans to abandon coal asset spin-offs and instead link mines back with electricity generators.

The move could complicate the country’s renewable energy efforts but is set to help a strained national budget. The WIG-Energy index of 14 Warsaw-listed energy companies dropped as much as 6.7%, with PGE SA declining 9.7% and Enea SA 8% as of 11:43 a.m. in Warsaw.

Poland’s previous administration — which lost power late last year — planned to separate coal and lignite assets from state utilities, in a bid to make the power industry more appealing for investors as well as banks. The European Union’s most coal-dependent country has said it will cost roughly $400 billion to meet the bloc’s climate goals.

The new government of Donald Tusk has long signaled it wasn’t happy with the spinoff proposal — leading to underperformance of energy stocks — and Industry Minister Marzena Czarnecka effectively derailed the project in an interview with daily Rzeczpospolita.

The previous proposal was made “just so that banks can finance projects to green the energy mixes of energy companies,” she said in an interview published on Wednesday. “The problem of coal assets would not be solved, but only transferred to the State Treasury and onto the shoulders of taxpayers.”

'Quick and Intensive'

Czarnecka said that PGE, the country’s largest utility, will instead be linked with Silesian mines, while Tauron Polska Energia SA with be tied up with mines it transferred to the State Treasury a year ago. Furthermore, Enea won’t pursue earlier plans to sell miner Lubelski Wegiel Bogdanka SA to the Treasury, she added. Details of the new plan will be presented in July.

Asked for comment, the State Assets Ministry, which oversees government-controlled utilities, said that it was still analyzing the merits of a coal spinoff some time in the future. It didn’t directly refer to Czarnecka’s comments.

PGE’s new CEO Dariusz Marzec last week said that the company needs “quick and intensive actions” to focus on renewable energy investments, with its coal assets weighing on ability to spend cash on offshore wind projects in the Baltic Sea.

“The idea of consolidation of coal mines and power generation shows that we are back to square one,” said Robert Maj, an analyst at Ipopema Securities SA in Warsaw. “It looks like that the government prefers supporting miners through utilities, not the state budget, which is negative for minority shareholders.”