Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Earnings Call of Grupa Azoty Capital Group. Today, we'll discuss the performance of Grupa Azoty Group for the fourth quarter and for 12 months of 2023. Floor is over to Mr. Adam Leszkiewicz, President of the Management Board of Grupa Azoty S.A.
Thank you very much, and welcome to all of you. I do hope that today's earnings call, right before the long May weekend, will be fruitful and effective, and will, first of all, allow us to present the financial performance of the group, but also clear some doubts in terms of certain events, as well as answer some questions from the investors, from the, from the analysts. We are at your disposal today, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all very much for your cooperation all year long in 2023.
Your involvement, your engagement, your comments on the company situation and group situation, and your analysis of certain events, this was, this was of major help for us, for the management board of Grupa Azoty, allowing us to build the answer, the action of the group in response to the external and internal events. We are a new composition of the management board of Grupa Azoty. We have just joined Group at the end of 2023, but I do hope that to a certain extent, to a certain extent, we already managed to answer, actually, at the beginning of 2024. But I do hope that to a certain extent, we managed to answer your questions, and today we will show you where we are right now. The whole management board is at your disposal.
Hubert Kamola, responsible for agro and chemicals, as well as purchasing. Andrzej Skolmowski, Skolmowski, CFO. Andrzej Dawidowski, responsible for logistics and plastics and polymers. Krzysztof Kołodziejczyk, responsible, responsible for restructuring. Paweł Bielski, responsible for strategy, investments, and also energy transition. We also have Mirosław Ptasiński, the new acting President of the Management Board of Grupa Azoty Kędzierzyn, and Mr. Wojciech Blew, polyolefins, polymers, that is polymers. A warm welcome again to all of you. Ladies and gentlemen, let us move on to another slide. This presentation of the composition of the management board was meant to highlight the issue of competencies at the very beginning, because we do believe that a number of turnaround and recovery processes are underway.
But what we can show you right on, that we're building, is that we're building the reliability of the actions that we're taking against 2023, and this all boils down to people, the management. This is why we believe that it's the competencies that are the key part of the turnaround plan, because we are able, quite quickly, to present the market, the analysts, the investors, that we are building a team that has the courage to tackle those very difficult problems, that has competencies and that are reliable, who's reliable to the state and to you. And we do hope, and we do believe wholeheartedly, that building this team based on the entire capital of the group, that is product, installations, headcount, human resources, we are able to recover liquidity and financial stability, and in the longer term, build growth prospects.
The management board is always based on. The selection of the management board is always based on competitive processes. What counts is the knowledge of Grupa Azoty, the competencies and the expertise, so as to make sure that we are able to work in the company, in the group, work with the people, work in the organization, not to waste time to get to know everything, but from the first day to work on the recovery. This also applies to across the board, actually, across the entire group. So first of all, we decided to combine the positions in the management boards across the group and the key companies, to make sure that the integration is as effective as possible, and also in terms of communication.
So the knowledge of the standards and translation of the standards into a lower level, so cascading them down, bottom up, to make it faster. So this is why we decided to break down our areas of responsibility by people in the management board, by members of the management board and the company. As far as 2023 is concerned, there were a couple of events that we need to highlight, and we'll discuss them in the comments to our financial performance and analysis of our business areas. But key facts and figures here to highlight at this point, so the drivers of our performance in 2023.
The market was demanding by all means, but on the other hand, we saw certain stabilization of feedstock prices, which allowed us not to increase our prices to our own group prices too much, and the company should have had a more effective internal reply to the market. So we do believe that we, what the company or the group lacked, was a more end-to-end analysis of the situation versus what had been happening since the end of 2023. Certain business decisions, for instance, related to the purchase of feedstocks, were not optimum. What we lacked was cost optimization, also reflected in a certain comprehensive document, such as a recovery or a turnaround plan.
So it all affected our performance, and we have to look at the performance of Grupa Azoty group over a long term, because for years and years, we yielded, we delivered stable EBITDA, stable profits, stable dividend we shared with the investors. However, in 2023, the situation was different. We do believe that all these events, all these factors, both internal and external, should be looked upon as a one-off situation. We know that 2024 will be challenging, but we are trying, and we're doing our best to put the group back on track. In terms of how we analyze our business areas, we need to, first of all, remember about the shutdowns of individual installations, which did not happen before. Some of them were not brought on stream again, such as caprolactam or melamine at Puławy. This is something we need to remember.
Key investment programs, key investment projects, polymer, Polimery Police and PC, AC, this work here is still in progress. In terms of Polimery Police especially, we will discuss it later on. We want to close, I mean, finish all those projects and bring them on stream while analyzing and considering the recommendations for target applications, for instance, the selection of target partners. We are still analyzing our costs. You know it because we are publishing our the documents or updates on our cost-cutting efforts, such as the sponsoring costs. We are also trying to do, and we have been trying to cut costs all across the board, and we'll do our best to implement them on an ongoing basis, based on the restructuring plan.
Obviously, certain trends were seen before, and the Grupa Azoty group could have reacted to them more quick, more quickly. I guess the group knew even in spring 2023 that these events would happen, and unfortunately, it did not take any steps to optimize the cost structure. So, restructuring has become or is becoming our, our main task, main task of the management board. All those new additional elements are presented in the slide as an additional comment to 2023. For instance, lack of progress and considerable progress in terms of consolidation of the group. We see it especially servicing companies or servicing or services in general, auxiliary services, such as security, such as the management of human resources.
You can see quite clearly that the involvement is not there in terms of the dedication, and it's not on the employees, and it's not a problem of the employees per se, but the problem of the culture, of the organizational culture, where people were not encouraged to use their trigger, unleash their creativity. We want to do that. We want to unleash their creativity. We have problems with the image of the group, because everything that happens and happened in 2023 actually weakens the reliability and undermines the reliability of Grupa Azoty across the market. So we are doing our best to improve it, mainly through the improvement of our financial performance in the quarters to come. We see that we have weaker relations with the market, with the clients. We are meeting our partners, we are meeting, the distribution network.
We want to do that, and we will show them how to improve the situation, how to put it back on track, and this will obviously have a positive impact on our business. We have a problem with social dialogue. We are identifying this phenomenon because we need to remember that there must be so social dialogue, social acceptance for our very difficult restructuring efforts. Ever since March, we have been engaging in social dialogue on the situation, on the challenges, and on what we are going to do and we have to do together. I see a quite an understanding, and this is something that we will take care of. We have a number of system efforts ahead of us. I'm talking about standardization of services, organizational systems and services across the group.
This will obviously impact our business in a positive manner. So we have a number of goals or targets ahead of us in 2023. 2024 is a specific year, and because we're presenting the performance of 2023 right now, and we are putting an ownership for this performance to or on the previous management board. But we, as a new management board, we need to find ourselves in this challenging situation and do our best to improve it. So what we are, what we have ahead of us, is to implement the approved turnaround plan without even waiting for the final corporate acceptance. We have been taking some steps already.
We want to have an agreement with financing institutions, to have a space for us to think about how we develop our business, how to grow, because every month we have been updating these agreements with the financing institutions. We want to build a target financial and business model for the group in order to show our efforts and our growth in the long-term perspective. I want to show you what the group will look like in three years to come and later. What will the business look like? What will the stream of revenue look like? And this is the task for us for the weeks to come. We are also working on a catalog of growth projects and growth products related to our core business in our individual companies.
We do not want to think of new megalomaniac major projects, investment projects. We want to focus on what we have right now and to develop it in terms of investing in what we need in order to enhance our supply chain, in order to make sure that our installations, our assets are effective. For instance, in the energy segment, we want to look at it, we want to analyze it, we want to focus on the profitability, and based on that, we will take a decision in order to, for instance, suspend or, disconnect or continue production. We will obviously look for, new capital, bridge capital. For instance, we have new major investments to complete. I'm talking about Polimery Police, and, yes, the.
We want to launch it commercially, and at Puławy, we also want to finish the CHP plant, combined heat and power plant. We want to analyze its impact on the energy balance at Puławy. This is our task as well. Integration is of major importance to us, especially in terms of business processes, and this is something that we need to focus and we will focus on. This is a major element for the improvement of the situation of the group as a whole. We will strengthen our business segments. We have been taking steps to do so. Kamola and Dawidowski will talk about it in more detail.
Obviously, sustainable growth and the entire ESG strategy is important to us, and you will see it in the materials that we have been publishing, and the new management board will obviously focus on it as well, even more than before. Because ESG is important in itself, but also it is something that requires a lot of efforts in terms of, for instance, environmental protection, and we will do that. We are also preparing a decarbonization strategy as a first element of the strategy of 2023 for the entire group, or 2030 for the entire group, and we'll do our best to strengthen competencies across the group in order to build the reliability of our group and the strength of our group.
So the improvement and ongoing improvement of our competencies of the management board will be a flagship effort to show you at the beginning of 2024. We believe in this group. We have taken this difficult task on our shoulders. We are counting on your support. We will use your support. We'll tap into it, expressing our strong belief that we will try to put the group back on track, stabilizing its financing, financial situation, and make it work again. So please do understand that our situation is challenging this and difficult, and right now, we will present the financial performance for 2023. Mr. Skolmowski will take over.
In the first quarter, we delivered the consolidated revenue from sales at PLN 3,084 million, EBITDA at PLN -10 million.
It was still better, up by PLN 284 year-on-year. The impact of impairment losses on the non-financial, non-current assets, was at PLN 1.562 million. Some of them did not have an impact on the EBITDA. However, the amount of PLN 137 million drove down a bit in EBITDA in the fourth quarter. These were the events that drove down our financial performance in the fourth quarter. But also, we received financial aid under the Assistance for Energy-Intensive Sectors Program from the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management at PLN 173 million, which improved our performance in the third quarter. However, we also saw rising production volumes.
This was an improvement in the chemical segment, agro segment, and even this slight drop by 2,000 in the plastic segment was not even a considerable factor. Across the year, the performance was as follows: revenues from sale at more than PLN 13 billion, down by 45%, EBITDA at PLN -1,366 million. Obviously not comparable to what we had in 2022. Production volumes, quite differently than in the fourth quarter, dropped significantly. We saw an effect of what happened, what had happened in the first three quarters in terms of production volumes. The impact of one-off events and from the fourth quarter, that is impairment losses, is similar. However, we had certain events that improved our performance.
We mentioned the aid for energy-intensive factors, and we received PLN 234 million in the first quarter under that program, and we also sold CO2 emission allowances that we had purchased before, so it improved our performance by PLN 283 million. Moving on to our market situation, in terms of the prospects for 2020, yeah, obviously, the macro environment was not favorable. This was not based on a positive impact, especially in the construction market that use our products, especially in terms of oxo alcohols, titanium white or melamine. We saw a major slowdown in the agro market in 2024, so 2023 saw major problems in terms of the financing of the inventory.
So this is why our strategy in terms of purchasing and the risk management changed, especially in terms of the distributor intermediary, as well as the end user, that is the grower. The falling prices of grains and, for instance, on the exchange in Paris and Chicago, obviously undermined the purchasing power as well. So as a result, 2023 as a whole saw these challenges. Grupa Azoty did not adjust its decision-making model and the business model to those trends and those changes in the market. The imports of fertilizers from a number of directions from all around the world obviously made it even worse throughout 2023. Most fertilizer plants and chemical plants in 2023, also in Europe, were optimized in terms of the capacity utilization, which was not more than 80%.
If we look at our figures, our numbers on the consumption of gas, and if we compare 2023 and 2022, we saw a drop of 15.2 TWh. That means a drop of 76% versus 2021. The price of gas obviously dropped significantly from the peaks that we saw in 2022. However, we still see a price that is double the price of the periods from before the war, that is 2017, 2019. Obviously, we have to remember there about the electricity prices as well as the exchange rates, which have a major impact on, for instance, the developer business, the construction business, and the purchasing of residential units.
And, we have to remember that it has an impact on the chemical segment and the plastic segment of Grupa Azoty. In terms of CO2 allowances and the costs of CO2 allowances, we did not see any significant drops or changes. In terms of currency exchange, the strengthening of PLN is not a good sign for us from the perspective of exports, because we have a positive exposure here, as well as on the import side, because we have to remember about the directions of supply from our to our markets, home markets. We had a analysis, a change of 10 groszy per euro. For instance, we're talking the price of ammonium nitrate.
We are talking about close to 7 EUR per ton of our product, and we are talking about a difference of PLN ±3 million for Grupa Azoty, which is of major importance to us. In terms of CO2 emission allowances, they saw a downwards change, stable change, but we have a security model or the hedging model, in terms of CO2 emission, allowances. And so we are analyzing and verifying our demand for the year to come. In terms of revenue for the fourth quarter, we had a downward trend by more than PLN 2 million especially in terms of, or due to a drop in product prices by PLN 2.3 billion . We need to remember about a drop in the cost of feedstocks at more than PLN 1.8 billion , especially due to changes in gas prices.
In 2023, we did not have any production of caprolactam, so a major cost of benzene was eliminated. However, all other feedstock costs for propylene, phenol reported a drop of, for instance, 30%. In terms of our agro segment, in 2023, we saw major pressures for our end users that are the growers or farmers, mainly due to the inflow of cheaper grain from Ukraine and a surplus of that product, which we still have to tackle as we speak, and also the expansion of other exporters of grain, which put a lot of pressure at the prices at Paris, in Paris Exchange.
On a positive note, in 2023, according to the information from the Agency of Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture, we saw over PLN 10 million, PLN 10 billion of direct payments to our growers. So the purchasing activity picked up at the beginning of July, mainly due to favorable weather and the seasonal effects after June. It usually happens across the markets. In terms of compound fertilizers in quarter four, we saw a slight increase, 2%. However, if we compare it to the comparative period of the previous year, the prices were lower by 20 or 32%. It's worth commenting on import streams. This is very important to us in terms of our competitiveness. The imports of urea remain strong from all the different directions, including from Russia.
The import from compound fertilizers did not exceed 250,000, which can be considered moderate. However, we need to remember about ammonium nitrate and which depresses the import sample. So, the sources of ammonium nitrate coming to Poland were both EU and EU member states, and also United Kingdom. So something went wrong here in terms of our reaction of those competitors. As a summary, in terms of agro segment, we need to remember about the lower prices of gas, considerably lower volumes, production volumes across the year, the purchasing policy on demand, nobody generated any inventory whatsoever, which is a major model in the chemicals business, and obviously, strong impact of imports and its effect on supply.
In terms of our chemical segment, oxo alcohols in 2023, the prices of oxo alcohols across the board went down by about 25%-27%, lower in terms of melamine, lower utilization of our production capacities. We had certain problems in terms of production facilities, and especially costs of production as well. We are analyzing the situation in terms of how to address our offering, our portfolio of products, and also our competitiveness in the years, I mean, in the months to come. As a summary for the chemical segment, in the analyzing period, quarter four, the demand was weak, sluggish, due to unfavorable macroeconomic conditions, lack of certain trends in terms of prices. Prices actually stayed flat, and we have to remember that there were also low prices across the European markets, also due to imports.
The plastics segment was under pressure of polyamide six prices, downward trends, combined with rising prices of benzene. So this spread for 2021, 2022, compared to 2021, 2022, was very different, especially in terms of European markets, which affect our business. We also saw a downward trend in prices towards caprolactam, and we also did not manage to produce caprolactam at Puławy. It was shut down and, actually, it was not restarted as we speak. As a consequence, we have lower production capacities in terms of, term of polyamide six. Some of the production, production capacities are not utilized. We see a potential to improve and increase production volumes in the periods to come. But right now, this cannot be confirmed by the market. This cannot be done, versus the micro situation if those market trends remain. We.
There was a drop in the prices by 23%, combined with an increase in benzene prices by 19% over the long term, ever since the beginning of 2023. This has an impact on our business all around Europe, actually. As a whole, in terms of the summary of the plastics market, the key in Europe was the macro situation. The demand in Europe was sluggish, and also we saw a slowdown of production in the automotive or construction segment, that there are main segments for our products. Therefore, the demand in the plastic segment is much lower. It did stabilize, however, it stabilized at a level that is still very much lower than before the pandemic, which will impact our production capacities and efficiency of the market also across the board in Europe, including at our competitors.
The reversal of the trend, the downward trend in prices, was mainly due to an increase in the prices of benzene. We do not see any upward trends in demand, however. Our performance by segment. In the fourth quarter, we saw a drop in the revenue, in the revenues, in across the group by PLN 2 billion, mainly in the agro segment by PLN 1.2 billion, in the chemical segment by PLN 6,663 million, plastics down by PLN 86 million. In the fourth quarter, in the agro segment and the chemical segment, reported a pickup, year-on-year in terms of EBITDA, up by PLN 280 million and PLN 60 million.
The plastics segment, EBITDA in the plastics segment went down, mainly due to Grupa Azoty Polyolefins' performance due to the startup of the installation. Across the year, 2023, we saw a drop in revenue by PLN 11 billion, down to PLN 113 million, including PLN 6.8 million for the agro segment, PLN 3.8 billion for the chemical segment, and more than PLN 1,900 million for the agro segment. The contribution of the agro segment is significant, 61% of the entire revenue structure, both in 2022 and in 2023. And negative margins across all the segments, unlimited demand for our products, and unfavorable price relations versus our costs of production.
In the agro segment, in the fourth quarter of 2023, the average price of gas, our main feedstock, was at EUR 31 per MWh, TTF, down by 57% year-on-year. At the same time, in the fourth quarter, the price of gas went up by 20% quarter-on-quarter. Even though we saw a significant downward trend in the months to come, the price, price range from EUR 28 to EUR 53 per MWh. The continuing downward trend for the prices of grain, both in both Poland and in Europe, and growers also saw a downward trend in the price of gas, which made them wait for a reduction of fertilizer prices. Obviously, we need to remember about the stock levels, applications, and purchases of fertilizers before the final application season.
In the chemical segment, in the fourth quarter of 2023, we saw low demand due to an unfavorable macro situation around the world, especially the lack of revival in China. The stock levels of our clients in the segment were quite high, which was mainly due to the supply of competitive projects imported from Asia. The sale of products by volume went down versus the previous year, year-over-year, but the sales of melamine, urea, titanium white in terms of volumes, they went up, and we also remember about the technical-grade urea and plasticizers. In terms of plastics in the fourth quarter, price trends went down in terms of PA6 and phenol, year-over-year. And the key sectors that consume polyamide accepted lower volumes, in terms of prices, due to, changing demand from end users and unfavorable macro conditions.
A slight improvement was seen in the automotive segment, but those levels were still lower than before the pandemic. Due to a very difficult situation in terms of demand and supply balance in the March last year, we stopped caprolactam production at Puławy, and it was not resumed by the end of the year. In the fourth quarter of 2023, in the plastics segment, we saw an emerging EBITDA margin at -80%, which was determined mainly by the impact of high startup costs at Grupa Azoty Polyolefins. Moving on to our financial performance, key facts and figures. We are paying off our long-term and short-term debts.
We're talking about PLN 386 million in the tranche of term loan with a bank consortium, as well as the loans from EIB and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. In 2023, we increased the payout of the revolving facility. We're talking about PLN 1.1 billion of the entire pool of PLN 1.5 billion available until 2025. We also have multipurpose credit limits with PKO, up to PLN 1 billion until September 30, 2025, which was related to the cash pooling agreement, real cash pooling in euro and in PLN, until, again, September 30, 2025. Please note the financial situation in 2023, it went down.
It deteriorated due to extreme volatility of gas prices, as well as products, including fertilizers, and a major effect on the demand of, on, to our products. This obviously had an impact on our financial performance, which translated into low net debt to EBITDA in 2020. In 2021, 2022, versus 2020 and 2022, we're talking about -2.7 due to the negative EBITDA, and the resulting net debt increase. The negative performance in the quarters to come started a discussion and analysis with a group of banks financing both the group and polyolefins. The current management board got involved into this process at the end of March, the intensive negotiations with the group of banks.
In terms of our CapEx investments in the third quarter of the year, they stood at PLN 531 million , and more than PLN 2 billion, or specifically PLN 2.2 billion across the year. Polimery Police project will be discussed by Andrzej Dawidowski.
2023 was the key year for the project, mainly due to the fact that the production was launched in June as a test production. In order to secure the permits, we obviously applied under the REACH process to use propane and propylene under the production process. We only have 0.1% to complete the investment. Right now, the plant produces around 1,800 tons of propylene.
As we speak, the products are sold on the market, mainly in Europe, specifically in Poland, Germany, the Baltic States, as well as in Southern Europe, through our distribution channels and traders. Some of it also through our own distribution channels. In terms of the supply of feedstocks, we received or accepted 8 propane and 2 propylene shipments by sea. The process is approved, and it proceeds as planned. Other key investments, CapEx projects, are presented on the slide, so you're very much encouraged to analyze the presentation to find out more. What we want to add at this point is that the new management board, the current management board, confirms our conscious decisions and our ownership of the decisions that we make in the chemicals business.
Sustainability is treated as a key strategic goal for us across the group, across all the companies of the group. We have selected specific management board members who will be owners of that process, and we also published non-financial performance report for 2023, our ESG report, including the data, the data for all the key companies and the entire group. We also disclose more than 80 GRI Standards in the report and our own goals in terms of ESG. As a summary of our performance, both in the fourth quarter and in 2023 as a whole, we want to add that in the fourth quarter alone, despite the negative EBITDA for the entire group, most of the companies of the group reported a positive EBITDA. But the impact of impairment losses at the parent company is seen at the net profit level.
In other companies, it's only at Puławy that reported the net profit above the line that is more than the zero across the board. In the fourth quarter across the board. You can see what the situation looked like in the entire year. You see the losses, PLN 1.6 billion at Tarnów, more than PLN 600 million at Puławy, same at Police and Kędzierzyn. At COMPO EXPERT, despite the positive EBITDA across the year, we're talking about PLN 370 million in terms of a net loss at the end of the year, at PLN 68 million. In terms of Grupa Azoty Puławy, a couple of facts and figures. Limiting the production in 2023 was the main element in which we responded to the market situation in terms of the demand.
Our flagship products and our flagship installations were not used as they could be. In terms of nitrogen fertilizers, we're talking about a downward trend by 80%. You should also look at the decision to reduce the production in the first half of 2023, was due to high contracted gas prices for the first half of the year. We have to remember that the stocks were bought at high prices. This is something that put a pressure on the company. On the other hand, we also reduced our CapEx spending investments, but on the other hand, we got involved in a very intensive sponsorship activities. We also saw certain delays of our key investments. I will talk about it later on.
In the consolidated revenue for the fourth quarter, we're talking about more than PLN 1 billion, going down by nearly 50% year-on-year, which was mainly due to lower prices of our products and services. We had a positive impact on the volume, on the volumes, PLN 156 million. In the fourth quarter, we also received financial aid from the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, and this added to our positive financial performance, and also EBITDA, which we delivered at 14.3%. In terms of the costs of energy, we're talking about 57%, mainly due to the rising prices of electricity, which translated into PLN 46 million, combined with lower volumes of utilized or consumed energy. The cost of coal went up.
The prices went up by 36%, and this is a problem that we need to tackle still. Over the year, our revenue from sales went down by nearly PLN 4.45 billion due to lower prices and also lower volumes as you can see on the slide. We reported higher costs of electricity, up by 59%, which was due to the rising prices of electricity across the year by 108%, combined with lower consumption by 21%, down by 21%, as well as the consumption of coal, mainly due to the rising prices of coal going up by 80%. We're talking PLN 120 million
I do believe that despite the additional funds received for energy-intensive sectors due to abrupt rises of prices of electricity and gas, and also the sales of CO2 emission allowances. At the level of EBITDA, EBIT, and net profit, we're still talking about negative results. We're talking about minus PLN 60 million in terms of our net loss. In the commentary, by segment, the key segments, that is Agro and Plastics, generated negative EBITDA at PLN 519 million . In the case of Agro segment, the revenue accounted for 80% of our revenue structure. That is a lot, and obviously, significantly lower volumes and the prices of key fertilizer products were the reason for that. And we also mentioned, Mr. Skolmowski mentioned the stoppage of the caprolactam production.
We are seeing an increase in demand in the Agro segment. In terms of fertilizer products, obviously, it was still down year-on-year. For instance, for urea, we are talking about 28% of a difference, which is a lot. The last comment on our investments, because it's very important for the company, investments. The four investment projects that we are presenting on this slide in terms of the upgrade of our boiler, OP-215, it's nearly finished. It's practically finished. In terms of flue gas desulfurization, same, it's at 85%.
We will have a launch of this installation in terms of the test run, and we will see what the energy structure at Puławy will look like, because we have to remember about the step over of the caprolactam unit, which means that the energy block that I'm talking about right now, it might not be utilized. We're talking about the construction of the energy block based on coal, which is at 99%. In terms of the upgrade of the nitric acid unit and the building of new, nitric acid installations, we're talking about 78% in terms of progress. The budget is at PLN 695 million.
This is a key investment for the company because without it, our lines will not be able to produce products and run smoothly without the upgrade of the nitric acid unit. This is therefore a key investment, and it needs to be finalized as soon as possible. Moving on to Police, the situation in the fertilizer market is very unfavorable in terms of the prices falling very quickly in terms of product prices. We also need to remember a very sluggish and slow decision-making process in the company, which did not keep up with the demand in the market for new products. So the dynamics of the market was way ahead of that decision process.
In terms of titanium white, the availability of it, imported titanium white, was very, very high, and this combined with lower demand in general, affected both the Polish and the European markets, and combined with lower prices. Obviously, our performance was also impacted by the update of the financial model for Grupa Azoty Polyolefins, as well as an impairment test for the assets of this company. The additional support for energy-intensive sectors, we're talking about PLN 109 million of an impact on our EBIT. On the other hand, we also had the impact of the sale of 457 thousand CO2 emission allowances in the period, which also had a positive impact of our performance.
We also signed an agreement with the financing institutions, together with the agreement to waive certain conditions of the financing agreements. Looking at the prospects of the company, we joined the Hydrogen Academy as a joint venture of a cooperation partnership with the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin. In terms of fertilizer production, the fourth quarter was way better than the first three quarters of the year. We reported a positive EBITDA at PLN 25 million and 3.6% in terms of positive EBITDA margin. Our operations in the fourth quarter were improved, especially in terms of compound fertilizer production. We're talking about a larger demand from the local market in Poland, but also the reduction of production costs due to lower gas potassium salt and phosphate prices.
In terms of the additional impact on our financial performance, we received the support for energy-intensive sectors from the National Fund, we're talking about PLN 36 million. However, this was offset in terms of the EBITDA level, this was offset by impairment losses of assets at PLN 148 million. Other key impacts on our gross profit included the upgrade or update, actually, of the financing model for Grupa Azoty Polyolefins. In 2023, we closed the year at a negative EBITDA level at minus PLN 77 billion and -2.6% in terms of EBITDA margin. As I said before, the aspects of quicker downtrend in prices versus the of those products versus compound fertilizer prices added to our situation here. And also we saw a downward trend in production volumes, which all translated into our lower performance.
In titanium white, we saw both the downward trends in prices and production volumes. The sale of CO2 emission allowances at PLN 190 million was a positive factor, and also, as I said, the aid to intensive, energy-intensive sectors which were received. Regarding pigments, the performance for the fourth quarter of 2023, we're talking about PLN -12 million . In fertilizers, it's on the plus PLN 32 million. The main drivers of those figures were the stabilization of gas prices, as well as the prices of potassium chloride and phosphates. The drop in those prices allowed the company in the fourth quarter to report a positive EBITDA in the fertilizer segment. Considering the more sluggish demand, the production was not on par with the previous years.
However, it was adjusted to the expectations of the market, especially considering the purchasing power of the farmers. In 2023, quarter four, EBITDA margin went up year-over-year at 5.7% in the fertilizer segment. Looking at the pigment segment, we saw a very much demand for titanium white and the products derived from titanium white. Mainly, it affected the construction segment. We also saw the pressure for price reduction for titanium white in the market. This was obviously supported by the global oversupply of titanium white, especially from Asia. In the others segments, the other activity, EBITDA was reported at PLN 5 million . Our contribution by segment in 2023 as a whole, in the fertilizer segment, EBITDA was reported at PLN -103 million . In the pigment segment, at PLN -60 , and volumes went down by 18%.
In other activities, the EBITDA is positive at PLN 86 million. In terms of production volumes, sales volumes, as you can see, in the fourth quarter, we saw an increase year-on-year. To date, we are talking about a downward trend, both for the fertilizers and for other segments. Investments are key, investments for both titanium white production, we are talking about the extension of the logistics base and also the extension of the storage and distribution system for TiO2, titanium white. Automatic control for 2 installations for the production of ammonia and the upgrade of a turbine generation unit together with auxiliary installations. These are continued to be continued into 2024.
As a summary of our CapEx spending and investments in 2023, fourth quarter, we're going, we are showing a decline of 55% versus 2022. We mainly focused on the upgrades, the repairs, as well as mandatory investments. Throughout 2023, our investments went down by 45%, and the key areas were the maintenance, and repairs, as well as mandatory CapEx and mandatory investments. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you very much, and we are now ready to move on to the Q&A session.
Question number 1, are you considering the issue of stocks, as the management board in order to improve, the financial situation of the company of the group? Well, we are taking into consideration all the options, and this includes the issue of shares. Do you plan to delist Puławy and Police from the stock exchange?
There are no plans to delist the company, either of these companies, as we speak. All options are on the table, as we said, but there are no specific plans for that.
How much do you still have to spend on Polimery Police in terms as Grupa Azoty?
In terms of the project, we're talking about EUR 133 million to be settled under the project, and we do not see any other scenario here to be talking about. This is under no discussion here.
One more question. To put your employees at ease, what are your plans for the restructuring of headcount? There's been a lot of signals and talks about the downsizing. We're talking about a standstill in terms of the salaries as well, and no inflation increases for salaries, and especially considering a lower competitiveness of the group as an employer. What are your plans to retain a well-educated and expert personnel within the group?
Thank you very much for this question. I do believe that this question is the most difficult question we have received from you together, but also during our previous sessions with the media. This is a very difficult topic, because the key assets for the group are the employees, and we are definitely communicating it very clearly. The main assets are the employees, their competencies at various positions and various installations and plants. We want to invest in human resources as one of the key elements of our business and pillars of our business.
Unfortunately, what we see for 2023, and it started earlier, has an impact on not only our financial liquidity, the stability of the group, but also you have to remember about everything that is associated with the problems that we have to disclose, but also the fact that no action has been taken before. But while focusing on this flagship investment in terms of its size and importance, that is Polimery Police, there were two areas that we, as a new management board, see as very challenging in terms of its impact on the group. First of all, the headcount, the employees, the human resources, and no investment into human capital, and secondly, on the installations and at the lack of the assignment of additional sufficient funds on the repairs, on the maintenance, on the upgrade of those installations.
We will analyze it in detail. We want to come back to the practical hands-on idea, that is investment in human capital. Obviously, retention of key employees and key competencies, and an attempt at a certain agreement with the social side to make sure that both us, as the group, and the employee is satisfied or are satisfied. Because at the end of the day, the idea is to grow the business and improve our business situation, and without the employees, it won't be possible. I cannot promise you that we can restore the level of investments into human capital that will be satisfactory to you very quickly. We saw a lot of action taken in quite the opposite direction.
First of all, the ban on competition, to make sure that, at the key management level, we have this, but we will not look at it in the very same way. We will discuss it with the trade unions, and we will communicate directly with the companies and with the employees in order to make sure that we'll have investments into human capital. We will restore it. In 2024, it will be difficult, so we will have to ask you for some patience. But the idea is to return to that level, the level of investment into human resources, human capital, the level that will be satisfactory and beneficial to all of you and us as a group, as a whole. There were a couple of questions that you are repeating.
The impact of sales of CO2 emission allowances of EBITDA, we're talking about PLN 288 million, and the sales took place in the first quarter, actually, of 2023. That will be all. Thank you very much for your attention, and let us now move on to the individual discussions. Or maybe do we have any questions from the room, in the room from our participants? If not, thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much for today's conference call, and I'd like to take you to the investors chat with Mr. Andrzej Skolmowski, the CFO, at 2 P.M. on the StockWatch. Thank you very much for your attention.