Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you cordially as participants to today's results conference of JSW. All of you are with us by monitors. I'd like to welcome you to the summary, the recap of results of the Q1 of 2025. My name is Adam Rozmus, I'm the Vice President responsible for Technology and Operations. I'm joined today by Jolanta Gruszka, who's the Vice President responsible for Sales, and we also have Remigiusz Krzyżanowski, who's the Vice President responsible for Economic Affairs, so the CFO. So, recent months were a major challenge for our group, having in mind the unfavorable market conditions as well as extraordinary results, things that are independent of our, outside of our control, which transpired during the Q1 of this year.
Having such a challenging environment is something that goes in parallel with the execution, unwavering execution of our program to reduce costs as well as to increase the resilience of the company to external factors. Today, we'd like to present the financials as well as the operational data in Q1. We'd also share information with you about the results of our savings programs and our investments. I'd like to invite you to follow our presentation, and once again, I'd like to thank you for your attendance. Ladies and gentlemen, during the Q1 of this year, we had production of 2.8 million tons, and then we had a coke, then we had 703.7 thousand tons of coke, and we had the average price of coke and coal of 746. And so then coke price was more than 1,053.
We had the net result of negative PLN 1.3 billion, and EBITDA was also negative at PLN 545 million. If we look at the operating results, we will break that down in detail. Production of coal, as I mentioned, the total production, the total output was a result of things that happened on the 22nd of January of this year. We had methane combustion in the Szczygłowice section of the Knurów-Szczygłowice mine, and the outcome of that event. We also had the change in the decisions in terms of how the Borynia-Zofiówka-Bzie mine was being run because we had very difficult mining and geological conditions in Bzie, and it was not economically viable to continue the operations in the Bzie section.
So, the quarter of work in Q1 were more than 17,000 meters, so 17 kilometers, and so it's also worthwhile to talk about adding six meters per ton of coal. So, we had more than coke production that was higher than 703,000 tons, was higher than Q4 2024. Then we can go on to the next slide, and I'll ask Jolanta Gruszka to take the floor to talk about the results on the next slide.
So, ladies and gentlemen, let's begin with analysis of the major factors that are affecting the economic results of the group in Q1. And so we can say that there was greater protectionism that's growing, as well as growing uncertainty, and so the steel market is very challenged. And so there were import tariffs in the United States on cars as well as on steel.
So, international talks are underway, and so there is a lot of volatility on the market. This is engendering greater uncertainty and at least uncertainty on the business community. Then we have import quotas imposed by India, and this is primarily against coke from Indonesia and the first and Q2s of 2025. And so this is 90% lower than what we saw in Q3 of last year, and this means that there's greater expansion by Indonesia onto other markets. In terms of protecting their own market, in March of this year, India started to do anti-dumping proceedings against the prices of coke, and so these proceedings were initiated as a result of imports at lower prices. And so we're one of the larger exporters to India, and we weren't part of these proceedings.
If we look at the European steel market, we can say that the prices are still below the level that we had seen in the comparable period of last year. We have greater exports from China. Chinese producers of steel in Q1 2025 have exported more than 27 million tons of steel, which is an increase of some 6.8% compared to the comparable period of the previous year. The export increases from China means that there was a slowdown in the construction market in China, and so the decline in demand for steel, while at the same time there's the stable utilization of the production capacities of the Chinese manufacturers, means that they could actually redirect more steel to the export markets. This is primarily to Asian markets.
They are able to compete effectively with the household production from those countries. Then they are exporting to Europe. Another major external factor is the decline in HCC coal prices and the movement in the US dollar/USD exchange rate. We still see the unfavorable ratio of blast furnace coke prices to hard coking coal prices driven by the expansion of Indonesian coke. Based on the data from McCloskey, the export of Indonesian coke to Europe is growing steadily, and in the recent quarter, it reached its highest level ever. Our main products are inputs for the production of steel, and this market is facing the fact that in Europe, people are turning away from these raw materials in favor of the renewable energy sources.
This has an impact on the amount of production as well as the sales, both for coal in general as well as coking coal and hydrocarbons and coke. If we have the 2024 and 2025 transformation, based on the data that is published by the World Steel Association, we can say that there's an increase of 5.8% of production, but it's still lower than in Q1 of last year, so a difference of 4.5%. In the European Union countries, we can see that there's an increase of 2.5%, but if we compare to Q1 of the previous year, it's down by 2.5%. If we compare the steel production in Q1 2021, it's down by some 15%. Steel prices on the European market in Q1 of 2025 were growing compared to Q4 of the previous year.
The average price for steel rods was up by 1.1% compared to Q4 2024, but it's still 5% lower than Q1 of the previous year. We also saw higher increases for flat goods, flat rolled goods, so quarter on quarter, this is an increase of 8%, but in comparison to Q1 of 2024, we see a decline of more than 16%. I think it's worth also mentioning that as of April of this year, we have limitations on steel imports into Europe in order to protect the steel industry in Europe. This took place when European producers are facing global glut of production capacity. They're facing exports from China as well as barriers to key markets like the United States. This decision was made after doing a review set of proceedings, and so 13 member states of the European Union participated in this review.
Coking coal came Q1 of this year. We can say that there was a limited amount of demand, and stable weather conditions in Australia meant that there was less risk of weather-related turbulence. We had many producers going below water. The trend reversed at the end of March, but we were down to $166 per ton in March. As a result of growing uncertainty on the marketplace, the market participants on spot markets are waiting and waiting until the inventories dwindle, waiting to see what's going to happen with the marketplace. The number of resales was growing in terms of previously contracted coal, and that increased also supplies, and that contributed to further price decline.
If we look at the Australian HCC in Q1 of 2025, we can see that the price was $185 on an FOB basis out of Australia, and so it's down by 8.7% compared to Q4 previous year, and it's down by 40% compared to Q1 of last year. During the Q1 of 2025, the average prices for semi-soft coking coal out of Australia was a little bit less than $118 per ton on an FOB basis out of Australia, and this was down from Q4, and it was down by 21.5% compared to Q1 of 2024. If we look at coke in turn, we can see that there's a glut of coke, and so we have the aggressive pricing policies of Asian producers.
We can see that relationship, the ratio between coke prices and coking coal is below what's considered to be equilibrium, and that means that coking plants were able to generate positive returns. And so if we look at the ratio, it was 1.25. That was the ratio between coking coal and coke prices. If we look at FOB prices out of China, it was $204 per ton, $224, and it was down over the previous quarter by a little bit less than 14%. But if we compare this to Q1 of the previous year, the decrease was 29%. According to McCloskey's data, if we look at the blast furnace coke, if we look at the CIF, the ARA reports, so it's $208, and so it's down over Q1 by 5.4%.
If we compare it to Q1 of the previous year, this decline was some 27%, so it's down to $260 for coke. On the next slide, we show you the relationship of JSW prices to the market prices. If we look at Q1, so we can say that we look at prices from October 2024 to February of 2025, that affects the level of JSW prices, and we show you what happened with prices over that period. We had prices ranging from $221-$186, and the average was $198, so 5% lower than the reference or benchmark price in Q4 of the previous year. In Q1, we can see the relationship between coking coal prices to quotations on the market generally was 94%, and so it's an increase by 5 percentage points over Q4 2024.
We've explained many times that when we sell coking coal, we have long-term contracts where the prices are demarcated by price formulas, and the difference is that we see with respect to average prices used by JSW and the market prices is a result of the distinct nature of these formulas. So we have different periods for averaging prices, and we use different FX rates, and so volatility has an impact. It contributes basically to deviation. Over the longer time, we can say that over the longer term period, this averages out, so in Q1 of this year, we had higher quality coal and higher prices from the good news from Zofiówka, and this contributed to an improvement in the prices we achieved as well as the percentage of benchmark that we were achieving.
If we look then at coke, we should take into consideration what's happening on the coke market where the company is operating, and we have greater geographic diversity, and our buyers come from a larger number of countries, and so it's more difficult than with respect to what's happening with the coking coal buyers, so if looking at Q1 2025, we're starting to change the presentation of this ratio to coke prices because we're competing on the European market with imported coke. We should compare our prices to the prices for imported coke using the CIF ARA ports basis, so Antwerp as well as Amsterdam, and so the data concerning these ports comes from the customs agencies, and we believe that this is more credible data, and that's why we made this change.
To maintain continuity, we want to show you the European market coke prices based on the same publications that we've been using up until now. So we can say that the prices are set on an arm's length basis across the quarter, and we have in mind, of course, prices from the previous period as well. In Q1, the benchmark price quarter on quarter fell based on the quotations from the previous period. So this is a decline of some 10%. And so compared to ARA, we were at 90%, our prices were 96% of the market prices, whereas we were at 92% in the previous quarter. Let me remind you that we are comparing blast furnace coke prices to all of the fractions of the coke that are offered by JSW.
And the final aspect of this slide, this is steam coal prices, and we can say that on the domestic market, prices were falling steadily, and you can see that if you look at the PSCMI 1 index, so we can say that they were down by some 20-odd% to PLN 312. And so in Q1, our ratio of the benchmark price was 86%, and this is a result of where we are positioned on the domestic coal thermal coal market. So if we think about the type of coal that we're producing, that's used for steam coal that we're producing for the market, this is not the coal of first choice on the marketplace. We are treated as a supplementary provider of steam coal.
We're primarily producing and supplying coking coal, and that means our coal has a variety of factors that make it less attractive, so it's split very small fractions. And so we should compete as a result by utilizing a price policy, having in mind the quality parameters of the steam coal we're producing. At the end of my presentation, I want to remind you that the end of Q1 of this year, the inventory on the domestic market, we've done with the mine-based inventories, it was roughly 11 million tons. On the next slide, we'll show you basically the revenue of the. So if you look at sales of coal to external customers, so we were up by 1.7% if we're talking about the revenue on sales of coal to external customers.
This was a result of higher sales, and so this basically allowed us to offset the decline in the quantity of coal sold. Sales revenues were down by some 22%. In Q1, we were up by some 4% in terms of the quantum of coal sold. This was also in comparison to Q1. The increase was because of selling higher coking coal versus Q4. It's up by some 8% as compared to Q1 of the previous year, which was some 10.6%. The sales of steam coal in Q1 versus Q4 was down by 5.3%, but with respect to Q1 of the previous year, it was up by 8.8%. If you look at the average prices in Q1, we can say that they were more or less at the same level as in the previous quarter.
But for steam coal, we saw the price was down by 24.3%, and it came down to PLN 311.75. And compared to Q1 of the previous year, for coking coal, the price was down by 29.5%, and for steam coal, it was down by 35.8%. If we look at the internal customers, sales levels, it was down by 13.1%. This was a result of having a lower production of coke in Q1, and so we were limiting the supply because of having these extraordinary conditions at the Knurów-Szczygłowice mines, and we were optimizing, of course, our inventories at the same time. On the next slide, we'll see the sales of coke in Q1. We can say that there was not much difference in Q1 of this year to Q4, and so we were at 742,000 tons. Compared to Q1 of 2024, it was down by some 24%.
The average price in Q1 was down by 7.1% in Q1 2025 versus Q4 2024. It was also lower than in Q1 of 2024. And so we also had a decrease in the revenue on the sales of coke and hydrocarbons by 6.7% in Q1 2025 versus Q4 2024. And with respect to Q1 2024, the revenues were down by some 40%, and this was driven both by lower prices and lower production volume. And the final slide in terms of the review of sales in the market context, this is about inventories. And so coal inventory at the end of Q1, it was down versus the end of Q4 of 2024. It was down by 15.6%, and this is primarily inventory consisting of steam coal. This is an increase of some 3.8% versus the end of Q1 2024. And so we have a decrease here of some 40%.
We have an operational reserve for mines as well as the technological reserve in coking plants necessary for steam coal operation and coke oven batteries, so if you look at, we had an increase in inventories for steam coal above all, and so we have an increase of some 69%, and then if we look at coking coal, we have a similar level with a slight increase of 1.4%. If we look at the coke inventories, we are at the low level needed just for operational purposes, and so it was a little bit less than 116,000 tons at the end of Q1 2025, so it was down by 21.3% versus Q4 2024, and it was down by 12.8% lower than the end of Q1 2024. That's more or less it from my side. Thank you for your attention.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we talk about the investments of the JSW Group, so our policy is consistent in terms of our execution of the transformation plan, which has been adopted for operations, so we have lower CapEx versus Q4 2024, but also versus Q1 of last year, so we're down by nearly PLN 280 million, and this applies to the coal and the coke segments. I think it's also worth mentioning that in the coal segment, if we talk about construction investments, so it's down by some PLN 96 million purchase of finished goods, or also down, then we have the CapEx that we have to lease machines for the production of coal. This is also down, then we have the requirement of some PLN 16 million for the working capital, and all of these declines are a result of our policy changes.
Then we have our key investments that are continuing to run, which is the modernization of the coking battery number four and the Jas-Mos coking plant. We want to continue the building, the Radlin power generation units. Those are our key CapEx projects. I'd like to ask Mr. Krzyżanowski to continue the discussion of our investments here and our financial highlights. My predecessors told you about everything that was important in terms of the market context, what's happening in terms of our investments. My role, above all, is to show you in brief how all of this, how all these factors have affected the financial position of the group. In terms of the financial highlights, sales revenue quarter on quarter. The move from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025 were down by 0.9%. We had PLN 2,437 million.
That's the revenue in Q1 of this year. If we look at the net of non-recurring events in Q1 2025, we were in the negative at PLN 545 million. So the one-off non-recurring events had a value of PLN 695 million. So the net result in Q1 is negative PLN 1.36 billion versus Q4 2024. At that time, we were also in the red at PLN 914 million swatties. If we look at working capital, having in mind, of course, our investment fund, which is a closed-end investment fund, quarter on quarter, we had a decrease of 51.3%. And so all of the events that we talked about today impacted that. And so at the end of March 2025, we had PLN 1.2 billion of working capital.
On the subsequent slide, which is a bridge, I'd like to show you the impact of those factors, which had a big positive impact and a big negative impact basically on our sales revenue. So we started, well, let's talk about the change in sales revenue from Q4 2024. So we began with PLN 2.459 billion in Q4 2024, and we ended Q1 2025 at PLN 2.438 billion. What was the impact? Where did it come from? We had a positive impact from factors linked to the impact of coking coal sales volume. So it's an additional 117,000 tons. And so that means the financial impact was PLN 87.4 in the black. Then we had an increase of the coking coal price change, and that led to a PLN 2.6 million increase in sales revenue. This is from coking coal price changes.
If we look at those factors that exert a negative impact, and the biggest negative impact came from the coal price change, so this is PLN 79 per ton, quarter on quarter, and that means we had a negative impact of PLN 59 million. We also had a major impact coming from the change in steam coal sales prices, so of 24% quarter on quarter, and that's nearly PLN 100 per ton, and that contributed to PLN 51.5 million negative impact. If we look at other sales revenue, and then we had hedge transactions, we had basically an PLN 11 million positive impact, then we have the impact of steam coal sales volume. This is the negative factor. It's just 5.9% quarter on quarter, which converts into PLN 13.3 million negative impact, and we see an impact of coke sales volume.
This is the final positive factor, and that gave us PLN 1.7 million more in revenue. Now if I can go on to the costs or expenses by nature, we can see that the management team is consistently working on reducing costs quarter by quarter. We're down by nearly 7%. We're down from PLN 4 billion to PLN 3.7 billion. That's where we wrapped up Q1 2025. If we look at the changes in these costs, I'll show you this in a waterfall. In Q4 of last year, we had PLN 4 billion in costs. We ended at PLN 3.72 billion. The biggest positive impact was consumption of materials. Basically we have a positive impact of savings, PLN 103.1 million. Then we have external services down by 15.8%. That means JSW paid less primarily for eliminating mining damages, transportation services.
And so we had savings of nearly PLN 104 million. Then employee benefits, we are down by PLN 51.7 million. So we had a positive impact on our costs, and that was primarily PLN 26 million at JSW. So we had one-offs and provisions for holidays and lower number of headcount and then Jubilee awards. So all of these things led to a decrease. We also saw reductions in several other companies in the group. And in total, we had the overall impact of PLN 51.7 million. In terms of negative factors, we have other costs by nature. That was PLN 20.9 million. But as I said, the total impact was PLN 97.3 million less costs.
Now if you look at our mining cash costs and our cash conversion costs, we can see the following results. Let me start with the mining cash cost. Quarter on quarter, we have a slight increase of 4.9%. Let me talk about the impact of the costs. So volume was PLN 94. On the final result for MCC, the cost reduced that. If we look at cash conversion cost, which is the cost to convert coking coal into coke, costs are up by 9.2%. Cost is PLN 36 million. This is primarily a result of making settlements for business partners where JSW was making payments for RAFAKO. And then we had PLN 4.4 per ton of coke. So we had the final price, our final cash conversion cost of PLN 372.03 per ton.
On the next slide, the next graph, once again, you see the mining cash cost. And so basically, what were the positive factors? Consumption of materials and energy that gave us a positive impact of PLN 25.76. Then external services was PLN 25.95. Employee benefits gave us a positive impact of PLN 7.77 million.
We also had a positive impact in other costs by nature, which was 0.9 PLN per ton, almost a full zloty. We had a negative impact, as I said. This was primarily because of volume reductions, so it's nearly 94 PLN. Basically, the denominator was affected by that. We ended up the quarter with an MCC of 836.36 PLN per ton. We also show you a bridge graph to illustrate what's happened with the cash conversion costs. In Q4, we had 340.65 PLN per ton. We had the impact of volume, which was 4.41 million PLN. We have taxes and charges of 6.33 PLN, negative impact. We had consumption of materials, medical fees, that was 1.71 PLN. That means some other things that were positive. We had consumption of energy and external services, employee benefits of 1.93 PLN.
The other two were PLN 1.92 and PLN 1.4. Then we had an impact that was positive of volume-related factors, which is PLN 4.41 per ton. So then if we look at the drivers in the JSW group, one element that had the biggest impact was charges or impairments for what happened in the mine. Because this is how we've captured it in our cash generation units in terms of the mines. So we have PLN 566 negative. Then we have other costs of PLN 245. Then we have value of concrete assets. Then we have some positive impacts. As I said previously, we had the positive impact. The second, the slide switched on me. So we had the impact of cost by nature, which is costs are down by PLN 278 per ton. Then we have other sales-related factors, PLN 10.8 per ton.
We have the impact of coal sales volume and price, PLN 25.2 million. The impact of the result of other activities is PLN 31 million. In Q1 2025, it is negative at PLN 1.226 billion. We had non-recurring events, PLN 681 million. The net of non-recurring events Q1 2025 was negative almost PLN 546 million. The next slide, as usual, shows us the impact of operating segments on what happened in terms of the P&L and the JSW group. This slide simply tells us that the coal segment had a negative impact of nearly PLN 664 million. This was affected by the change in the coke segment, P&L at PLN 24 million. This had a negative impact. We had a positive impact coming from the change in other segments, P&L of PLN 41.5 million.
Then we had the change in the EBITDA of consolidation eliminations, plus PLN 115.2 million. So then the final EBITDA, as I said on the previous slide, it comes out on the net of non-recurring events. It's negative at PLN 545.5 million. That's the result as of Q1 2025. Now let's move on to working capital, having in mind what's happening with our closed-end investment fund within the JSW group. So we have those factors, including our inventories of PLN 140.7 million swatties. Then we have trade and other receivables of PLN 1.1 billion. Then we have income tax overpayments of PLN 15 million, and cash and cash equivalents of PLN 769 million.
Then we have the closed-end investment fund at PLN 2.5 billion. So this, as I said, is 2.5 billion almost. Then we had other current assets of PLN 35.6 million. Then we have negative adjustments in terms of loans and borrowings of PLN 198 million.
Then we have employee benefit liabilities, PLN 328 million. Then we have lease liabilities, PLN 251 million. Then we have our trade and other liabilities of PLN 3.08 billion. Then we have current provisions of PLN 285 million, almost. Then we have other current liabilities of PLN 41.5 million. And so at the end of the day, our working capital, including the closed-end investment fund at the end of the quarter, was PLN 1.218. Now, if we look at cash flow in the group, I would put forward, as it's demonstrated on this slide, cash at the end of 31 December 2024, PLN 1. 885 billion. At the end of Q1 2025, we had PLN 769 million.
What drove that result? So we had the net profit loss report tax of PLN 980 million, almost 1 billion. That was negative. Then we had depreciation amortization of PLN 347 million. Change in inventories was PLN 256 million.
We had the change in trade and other receivables of nearly 240 million PLN. So we've reduced things here, and that had a positive impact. We have change in trade and other liabilities of 410 million PLN. So this had a negative impact. It's almost like 411 million PLN. We had other operating cash flows, so interest and things like that. Profit sharing was 45.1 million PLN. We had a positive impact in terms of our investing cash flows, where primarily we have basically FIZ surrenders in the investment cash fund. We have loan and borrowings received 44.3 million PLN. We paid out loans and borrowings 27.5 million PLN. As I said, loan and borrowings received was 44.3 million PLN. We've repaid loans and borrowings down by nearly 28 million PLN. We have other financing cash flows and FX differences.
It's almost PLN 89 million. And so at the end of March 2025, so on the 31 March 2025, we had almost PLN 769 million. That's it for me. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Now we have the final slide within the framework of our presentation. This is a little bit outside of the reporting period covered by today's meeting. We need to talk about some of the positive actions in our transformation. We have two areas. When we have the Efficient Mine in April this year, we have five selected long walls where we're doing a pilot. We have a modified incentive system for the long wall crews. And as you can see on the graph, as a result of what we've done on these long walls, we have output up by 17%.
That means that we have a plus 5% increase of output across all of our mines, our long walls. Then we had savings. As of May, we've identified savings of more than PLN 300 million. This is more than 85% of the savings we planned for this year. The total savings are PLN 307 million. We have a positive mindset in terms of our ability to outpace this. That means we've completed the agenda for today's conference.
Now we can come on to the final item, which is the Q&A session. So go ahead and ask your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, the first question we have: What is the planned volume of production for coke and coking coal for 2025?
The trade unions and interviews are suggesting that production in JSW in 2025 should be around 12 million tons. The management board believes it could be closer to 14 million tons. Why is there such a major difference in the forecasts? Perhaps I will respond to that. Ladies and gentlemen, yes, in fact, there are many stakeholders in the transformation period in terms of the plan that's been adopted by JSW. People are interested in defining what is the run rate without having fundamental knowledge about this level. This run rate has been defined in Q1. We've achieved the target plus 5% in terms of the deviations that may show up.
Deviations may show up as a result of force majeure because of the fire, like at the Budryk mine. We had to seal all of the B4 longwall. The fire was about the neighboring longwall. Not where the production was going on. Nevertheless, we're undertaking efforts. I can tell you up until now, our efforts have been effective to mitigate the subsequent impacts. Thank you very much.
The next question: What level of CAPEX in the whole group of JSW should we anticipate in 2025? Once again, I will respond to this question. So ladies and gentlemen, within the group, we have the strategic transformation plan, which has scaled back the level of CAPEX in 2025. That was discussed on one of our slides. Up until the 30th of April of this year, we've reduced CAPEX by PLN 1.2 billion. So the group in 2025 plans to continue scaling back CAPEX, both in the group as well as in the subsidiaries. Thank you.
What increase of cost should we anticipate in the group and in JSW in terms of cost? I'll ask Remigiusz Krzyżanowski. So I'll talk about the costs. So in general, the company does not present any forecasts that go beyond the period covered by the earnings. Last call. I won't betray any secrets. You can see the decline in costs. We're working hard to cut our costs. I'm convinced that the costs in 2025, generally speaking, and by nature, we should be lower than we were in 2024. Thank you very much.
The next question: What's happening with your efforts to improve the liquidity of the group? So discontinuing the collective bargaining agreement as well as the solidarity tax, when could this take place? The company has informed through current reports about the applications that were submitted to the Ministry of Climate and Environment in terms of recovering the solidarity tax for the windfall tax. And we also asked to defer the payment of social insurance premiums delayed into spread over time. These applications are being reviewed. We have not recently finalized these issues. Once we have achieved the next stages, then, of course, we'll issue a current report to notify the entire market of what's happening. Thank you very much.
The next question: Is there a risk that JSW will stop paying benefits for mining damages? Ladies and gentlemen, the damages for payments for mining damages, these are statutory requirements for miners, generally speaking. And so failing to make those payments means you could lose your mining license. That type of activity is not even being considered. Maybe I'll violate the convention. I forgot to mention one thing, which we hadn't communicated in the current report. We have received an opinion, a legal opinion, from Professor Nykiel and his team. He's an authority in the tax field.
This opinion doesn't leave any doubt whatsoever in terms of the justification for the submission of this application. This information is available on our website. Thank you very much. What the 345,000 tons of coal shortfall in terms of the Budryk mine, how will that be spread over the subsequent quarters? The mine fire in Budryk on the B4 long wall took place at the beginning of Q2 of this year. It affected long walls that were at the initial stage of operation. The possible shortfall of volume will be spread evenly across the subsequent quarters of this year. When does the management board plan to revise the impact of the transformation plan for 2025? Your price assumptions and your volume assumptions, what you used to write this plan, unless they become less conservative.
Ladies and gentlemen, in terms of our strategic transformation plan. Means that we want to optimize things across many, many years, if not only about 2025. As a result, we're at the stage of introducing changes, and we're defining our production targets. We're also specifying our strategic efforts and measures, and that's why today we're not talking about tweaking the plan. This is something that we will consider to look at in terms of future adjustments or tweaking to the strategy. When does the management team anticipate to hear the result from the ZUS company? Would it be a matter of refunds being made to the company, or would it just mean you won't have to continue making payments? In the previous quarter, we gave a response about our major steps in the subject matter to defer payments and to basically convert that into a payment plan.
As I said right now, we have not received the decision yet. We will advise you in the form of current reports. We're not able to determine or state by when the ZUS or security company will make a decision on this application. But as soon as we get that decision, we'll pass on that information to you. Thank you.
What are your assumptions in terms of the price levels in the near future? The benchmark seems to be coking coal price of $200 per ton in order to sell coal at that price. Any mining expenses have to be substantially lower. What is your plan as a management team? So perhaps I can react to the market side of this thing. I can't comment on the hypothesis or the tenet that's expressed in the question. We do not publish forecasts. We track all of the forecasts published in the market.
We meet with our business partners in order to glean information, but also from that we meet with other market players. And we have our own internal research and analysis, but we have never published the results of that analysis. Let me add, if we talk about efficiency, this is the essence of our strategic transformation plan. A lot of our activities are here to make the mines more efficient, more cost-effective. Thank you very much.
Next question: When will headcount reductions take place? Perhaps you will speak to this. As we said at the previous conference, the headcount reductions would be our last resort. In terms of our savings efforts to save money on employee benefits, we have to receive the buy-in from the Social Party. We've held a number of meetings, but no decisions have been made, nor has an agreement been reached. These talks will continue.
I think what's noteworthy here or where comments should be given is the headcount in JSW is consistently falling. I've been using this data as of 31, 2024. So we've reduced the headcount by 647 employees for JSW. That's the headcount at the end of April, so of the previous year. So if we think about the money we have set aside for a rainy day has basically been used, what's going to happen? You have to liquidate the company? Once again, let me respond to this question. Based on the current reports published recently, and nothing has changed in the meantime, the money hasn't been used up because the company still has money in the closed-end investment fund of roughly 1.3 billion PLN. Plus, we have the current cash balance in the bank accounts of the company.
In order to counteract what's happening in the marketplace, we utilize the money in the stabilization fund, and that was the reason it was set up. But as a management team, we've also implemented the strategic transformation plan. We've talked about that many times, and it's been presented.
That was the final question that was posed. So thank you very much. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for your attendance at today's conference call. Thank you very much, and goodbye.