Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to welcome you cordially to the earnings conference of JSW for H1 of this year. My name is Ryszard Janta. I'm the CEO, and we will present today's results along with Jolanta Gruszka, who's responsible for sales, Bogusław Oleksy, who's the Vice-President , and Adam Rozmus, who's responsible for operational and technical affairs. We'll begin, as a matter of tradition, with the slides we've prepared, and we'll end up today's session with a Q&A session. Let's move on to the highlights for the JSW group in numbers. In Q2 of this year, our production of coal was 3.3 million tons, so 3,339,000 tons, which is up by 16.7% over Q1. Then, if we look at coal production, we were at 706.9 thousand tons. We're up by 0.5% over Q1 of this year.
In Q2, we had nearly 21 active longwalls, so we were up by 2 versus Q1 of the current year. If we look at the MCC ratio, it was down to PLN 727.5 per ton, which is down by 13%. Unfortunately, the market continues not to be conducive, so the prices of coking coal and coke continue to descend. So we see a decline of 8.5% for the average coking coal price, and we have a decline in the coke price by nearly 1.5%. It's down to PLN 1,038 per ton, whereas coal was at PLN 683 per ton. So EBITDA is still negative at PLN 365.9 million, but it is a lower loss than we saw in Q1 of this year.
As I said, we're nearly at PLN 366 million in the negative with EBITDA, and then we have a net result of PLN 712 million, which is a lower loss than what we had in Q1 of this year. Then we can look at the operating results, and I'll give the floor to Mr. Rozmus at this time. If we look at coal production in Q1 of this year versus Q2, if we look at that comparison, we can see that we've been able to increase production by 16.7%. If we compare H1 2025 to H1 2024, we're up by 3.3%. We see that there's more coking coal being extracted, and we've also reduced the amount of steam coal. Sorry for turning off my microphone. We have an increase of 2.7% in corridor works and running meters.
If we look at the amount of corridor works in the first half of 2024 versus the first half of 2025, well, this is down by 11.6%. This was a matter of optimizing our CapEx for individual mines. Optimization means to focus on those corridors, those mining pits that will produce coking coal. If we look at coke production, we're up by 0.5% from quarter to quarter, down by 9.4% year-on-year. I'll give the floor now to Madam Jolanta Gruszka to talk about the market environment.
Let me give you a short review as a matter of tradition in terms of what's happening on the market, what the market trends were during the reporting period, and then I'll sum up the sales in this period. On the steel market, we can see that there's growing uncertainty as a result of two factors. We talked about this previously: the unpredictable tariff policy of the U.S. and the growing protectionism that we see there, and then we also see growing exports of steel, so it's more than 58 million tons in China in the first half of the year, which is an increase of more than 9% over the record-breaking year of last year.
Unfortunately, the threats to the European market are much greater than what we could see directly coming from Chinese growing exports, so Chinese exports are squeezing out production from other domestic markets, like in Indonesia, which was not sending lots of quantities into the European market, and so they're not subject to certain protection mechanisms. Then we have Ukraine and Serbia. Then we have European countries which are not members of the European Union, and so they're not subject to the ETS system. As a result of the tough situation on the market, well, we can say that certain decisions were made by European steel producers. In the middle of the year, the total capacity of production in Europe, we have some 17 million tons, which is the highest level since the end of 2023 in terms of shutdowns.
The situation has deteriorated. The total quantity of blast furnace shutdown is more than 23 million tons of potential production. Then we've seen recent information about ArcelorMittal shutting down the plant in Dąbrowa Górnicza. Generally, we can say that the sole producer that's increased production is India. They're up in terms of their production by more than 9% in the European Union, even though we saw some increase in production of 20%. The overall decrease was substantial, and so it was like 7.1% in other European countries.
What's important here is to look at the first half of 2024. We can say the steel production is down by some 16% compared to 2020. This is the level of production in 2020. This was a pandemic period, a COVID period. The market situation has affected the prices of steel goods. In November of last year, hot rolled prices had rebounded from the lower level, which gave hope, but this trend ended in May of this year. In Q2, as we can see on the slide, the average price for these hot rolls was up by some 4% over Q1, but we can say that the sheets were down versus the similar period of the previous year. If we look at long goods in Europe, we can say that there's more stability quarter-on-quarter.
We had an increase by 3.4% for rods, but overall, this was down by 1.4% compared to the first half of the previous year. If we look at the spot prices, where we have the prices being defined, there was a lot of inactivity, and so we can say that we were at $169-$196. So, we can say that the prices are affected by uncertainty of the tariff policy and customs policy in the U. S. in the long term. We can say that there are some expectations about Indian export rules. So, if you look at FOB prices in the first two quarters of this year, we can say that the prices for FOB Australia was around $180, $184, $185 for coking coal spot prices.
In Q2, it was down by 0.5% compared to Q1, but it was down by some 24% compared to Q2 of the previous year. So, if we look year to date, if we can compare the first half of this year to the first half of last year, prices were down by some 34%. If we look at semi-soft, we have seen more price volatility, and so the prices were around $103 for FOB in Australia, and they were down by 12% compared to the Q1 of this year and down by 32% versus the similar quarter in the previous year. So, semi-soft prices were down by 27% in total year-on-year. And then let me give you a short commentary in terms of what's happening with coke. In the first half of the year, we were affected primarily by the quotas implemented by India.
These were import quotas, as we said at previous conferences. India, wanting to protect its own merchant cokers, has placed limits on imports of coke, and this is for met coke with a low amount of ash, and this was extended until the end of the year on the 30th of June, so anti-dumping procedures are underway in India, and so we're one of the biggest exporters to India, but we're not subject to these proceedings, and so for Indonesian met coke, it's now going to India, and so it has 715,000 tons, is what they sold to India. This is three times more than they sold the previous year from Indonesia, and so this growth is driven by competitive pricing.
And so the oversupply of coke, which is a trend that's very unfavorable to us, combined with aggressive pricing policy of suppliers from Asia, which means that the ratios are deteriorating, and this makes it impossible for merchant cokers to achieve a profit. So, if we look at the ToT ratio, we're coming down to a ratio of one. If you look at the ratio of prices between coking coal and coke. So, if you look at the Chinese FOB rates, things have fallen from $212 to $178 at the end of June. So, we can say that the average Chinese coke price was lower by 11.4%. This is what's happening with respect to blast furnace coke prices from Chinese coke. And so we can say there's a substantial decline of some 31%.
What we've emphasized previously in the European market, coke prices are usually higher than for Chinese coke prices, and based on the data, if we're looking at the imports into the European Union, we have a higher CSR than we would see in China. We can say in Q2, it was $244 per ton, and this was down versus the previous quarter by 6.4%. If you look year to date for the first half of this year, imported coke prices based on the ARA port deliveries are down compared to the previous year. Based on this market commentary, we can take a look at what is happening with the prices commanded by JSW's products. As I said previously, I pointed this out on the previous slide.
So, we can say in the Q2 , we have an impact on our prices from the period of January through May, and we can see the reference prices for Q2 of this year are down versus Q1 by 6%. And the ratios of our prices to the benchmark prices are 98%. So, we have 98% of the reference price. If we look at the coke price sold by JSW compared to the coke reference prices, we're at 106%. Here, let me emphasize once again that the coke market where we are present has more customers and a greater geographic region, and so it's more difficult for us to get a better price compared to what's happening with the coking coal. But as we explained in the reports, we're comparing to the prices of coke delivered to the ARA ports.
So, if we compare this to the first quarter, so the decline is roughly 5%. If we look at steam coal prices on the domestic market, we can say that the prices are regularly falling, and we can see this in the PSCMI1 index. So, this is down by nearly 3%. And if we look at our steam coal price versus the index, there's not a major change. So, we're roughly at 87% of the index. And as we explained previously, this is a result of our position on the steam coal market in Poland, on the domestic market in Poland. On the next slide, we summarize the sales of coal produced by the group. What I would indicate here, I think we should focus on revenue to external customers. So, they're down in Q2 versus Q1 by 9.4%.
If we look at coking coal, it's down by 7%. It's down for steam coal by nearly 27%. If we look at the decline in revenue, this is a result of falling prices, as I showed you on the previous slide. Some 8.5%. We can say that we had a slight increase of 1.1%. If we look at steam coal, the main reason for revenue falling is the fact that we have lower sales than in Q1. It's down by some 25%, and this is primarily a result of the seasonality on this market. Steam coal prices are down by 1.5% in terms of quantities. We can say that the total revenue on sale of coals to external customers fell by 18.1%, whereas nearly 17% on coking coal and nearly 29% on steam coal.
Of course, the key factor is falling prices, and so it's nearly by 29% on coking coal and 35% for steam coal. The fall in prices has not been offset by the increase in the quantity of coal sold, which was up by 15%, a 17% increase in coking coal and 11% in steam coal. And so, if we look at the sales of coal to internal customers, this is linked to our coke production. And then we can move on to the slide about the sale of coke. If we look at the sales of coke and hydrocarbons, we are at a similar level in Q2 as in Q1, and so the quantity of sales was similar, and so the average coke sales price was down by 1.4%. So, if we compare the H1 2025 to H1 2024, we can say the revenue was down by 33%.
And so, we had a decrease in the average coke sales price by like 24% as a result of coke sales being down by 15%. Then we have the last slide about inventories, and here we can see that the coal inventory at the end of Q2 was 1.6 million tons, a little under that, which is an increase by some 30%. And over the beginning of the year, it's an increase of 10%. So, 950,000 tons is for steam coal, and so this is an increase of 13.8% over the first quarter. And so, it's roughly 600,000, and this is an increase of 0.68%. Of course, we're talking about the inventories that we have in our mines and in the coking plants, and this is a result of the change in the production mix.
We've reported that because in the first half, we had two extraordinary events in Budryk and Szczygłowice, and then we had to adjust the sales mix as a result of these events. Coke inventory is at a minimum level, so it's 90,000 tons, which is an increase of roughly 22.6%, and it's a decrease of some 40% from the beginning of the year. That's it from my side. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, if we look at the capital expenditures of the JSW Group on an accrual basis, if we compare H1 2025 to H1 2024, the CapEx was down by 25.7%, and this is roughly PLN 630 million less. We were optimizing our CapEx as a result of realizing our transformation plan on an unwavering basis, where we've identified the prospects for the upcoming years. We want to have greater productivity, and we want to increase the quantum of coal that the market wants to buy, so we saw a decrease of 22.6% for capital expenditures in JSW.
T his is a decrease of 63% in JSW Koks, and some 43 million PLN difference, so ladies and gentlemen, if we look at the coal segment, which is in JSW itself, so we had in the coal segment a decrease in CapEx for property, plants, and equipment, expenditure on mining pits, according to IFRS, and we had an increase in CapEx, and this is a result of our following our policy. We were buying finished goods, so we're talking about the production longwalls in JSW, so we've done more there.
If we look at the capital expenditures in the group, if we compare the first half of this year to the first half of last year, we can say they're down by PLN 400 million plus, which is a decrease of more than 20%. These declines are a result of pursuing our Strategic Transformation Plan, as well as our plan to do investments. If we look at coke in this period, we had lower expenditures. We also have some strategic investments that are being done there. We should mention the modernization of Battery Number 4 in the Przyjaźń coking plant, as well as the Radlin expenditure. If we look at the JSW coal segment in the mines, we're pursuing strategic investments for each one of those mines to ensure that we're going to be able to open up new mining fields.
So, we want to deepen the existing shifts, and we want shafts. Excuse me, we want to deepen the existing shafts. So, thank you very much, and then I'll give the floor to Mr. Oleksy.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm here for the first time with you. So, you can only make a good first impression once, so please forgive me in terms of changing the method of presentation. I want to say a couple of words about myself. I'm a person from the industry, the mining industry, and the energy industry. I've worked for many years in management boards as a director in these types of companies. My main areas of responsibility are finance, project management, asset management, as well as organizing financing for large-scale investment undertakings.
It seems to me that my skills and knowledge poise me to act with responsibility and deal with the finances of our company. Of course, this is a major challenge, having in mind the magnitude of this task and the magnitude of the problems we face. Nevertheless, I believe that I should be able to grapple with this successfully. The current position of the company is very difficult. The current position situation stems from a large number of elements, and so my colleagues from the board talked about that. We're talking about market conditions, and here we do not have any influence over those factors. We also look at the exchange rate, where volatility in the exchange rate has produced lower revenue on our sales. We also have the high OpEx in our company.
We should not forget that on top of the external factors, over which we have no control, costs are elements which we can control, and this is one of the things that we have to deal with in the near future, even though we have this technical plan, business plan. So, these are things that we have to deal with. So, the consequences of decisions made several years ago in terms of paying the windfall tax in excess of PLN 1.5 billion also had an impact. What the management has done up until now, well, it's taken a number of measures that are structural in nature, that have an extemporaneous impact. We've mustered a large number of measures to renegotiate contracts with our contracting partners. We've also optimized CapEx. This process has been undertaken, and it's still underway.
As you know, our expenditures have to be aligned to our investments and our production plans. A pilot program was launched for efficiency on the longwalls. This is something we should also mention. In the near future, we'll prepare a summary of the efforts we've taken. All of these efforts are linked to a core issue and object, which is to stabilize the financial position of the company, even though the stabilization will take some time. As my colleague mentioned, we do not forget about investments. Investments are underway to a large extent. They are for augmenting the safety of our staff. We're also keen on efficiency, productivity of the business we're running. Let me walk you through a few slides. What we would like to emphasize is that the effort undertaken by the management board is being intensified. We've asked the ministry to reimburse that windfall tax.
We're working with the Social Insurance Institution, which will improve the liquidity position of the company. We're talking with banks. Here, we should mention that banks have prepared an independent report, or basically an independent report, business report was drafted at their request, and we've presented a number of actions which are indispensable for the company to be able to achieve financial stability in the near future. So, this is not only a matter of reimbursing this windfall tax, but also reducing labor expenses. This is one of the parts, one of the things that we have to do in the upcoming future, and all of these things have to be consistent or interconnected with one another in such a way. You have to dovetail in order for us to achieve stability. So, let me refer to some of the data.
I won't talk about all of the slides, but I'll talk about those things which I believe to be of importance from a financial point of view. First, if we look at sales revenue, if we look year-on-year, we can observe that the sales revenue has fallen. We have to understand what is the contributing factor. These are issues related to what Madam Gruszka discussed. So, the market price and the volatility of the exchange rate are the primary factors leading to this situation. But by the end of the year, we have to intensify our efforts to ensure that we have the proper volume of production and the proper amount of sales revenue to basically where we get money. If we talk about revenue, we need to talk also about EBITDA.
Unfortunately, at the end of H1, our EBITDA is negative, and this level of PLN 1.6 billion, more or less, is not satisfactory, but I'll talk about that in just a moment. If we look at the net result, this is the compilation of our revenue and expenses, but net result is still negative, and despite the large number of measures taken, this market situation, the cost side of things, do determine that we have a negative result, so then if we look at expenses, I'm going to focus on expenses. Here, we see a lot of potential, so when we talk about reducing labor costs, this is something that must be implemented. As Madam Gruszka said, we're not competitive in terms of our pricing. We have to be more cost competitive.
If we look at all of the problems related to that, it's not easy to work in a mining sector. We have deeper and deeper mines, more and more difficult working conditions. But with these costs, we're not able to compete. We can't be competitive in the marketplace with these costs. So, factors related to cost, if we look quarter-on-quarter, we can say, maybe they're not surprising. [Foreign language] , because it's just the way the cost accounting works. One good signal, [Foreign language] , is the reduction of energy costs, reduction of materials, but if we look at external services, this is a market impact. Then we have depreciation, amortization. This is something that's linked directly to our CapEx. The direction that we see here, quarter-on-quarter, I wouldn't say it's disquieting, but this is something that needs to change fundamentally.
What we're primarily interested in, which is the mining cash cost, converting the cash conversion cost for coke. So, as we see, the mining cash cost has been falling. So, that's a positive trend, but as I mentioned previously, this is not a sufficient decline. If we look at the cash conversion cost, unfortunately, we see a substantial increase in this cash conversion cost. So, the unit cost grew by nearly 20%. [Foreign language] So, our management team will intervene profoundly. So, JSW Koks management team needs to scrutinize the cost side of things here. So, if you look at EBITDA, the EBITDA drivers, this is something that also is of great interest to us. Here, we see the major drivers.
I don't want to identify individually or focus on every single driver, but if we look at the trends, we can say the trend is good, but all of our efforts taken as a whole are insufficient. If we look at the various segments, and their contribution is pretty clear, we can see that the coal segment makes the major contribution. Here, we're not discovering anything new. One of the things we have to do, one of our jobs as the management team, is to optimize the group to make sure these segments are productive, and if they're not going to be productive, then we have to take suitable measures, and then we can look at working capital. I would draw attention to the net working capital, because at the end of the day, we have negative working capital.
This is one of the symptoms that something bad is starting to happen. If we're looking at the flows, the cash flows, between payables and receivables, and this is one of the reasons that we've made the decision to undertake additional efforts. One of the things that we're working on intensely right now is cash flow. As I mentioned at the beginning, the situation of the company, its position is quite difficult, especially as in the near future, we will deplete the funds in the closed-end investment fund, and this will affect our ability to service our payables. At this point, it's absolutely necessary for us to focus our attention on utilizing instruments for the company to retain its liquidity, financial liquidity.
So, we started with revenue, and we've wrapped up this portion of the presentation with a discussion of cash flow, because the quantum of the cash we have and the cash flows themselves will depend to a large extent on volume and revenue, and of course, costs. All of these external factors are outside of our control, where we do have control in the near future. We'll be drained substantially, and so we need to find additional funds and at the same time ensure that we are efficient, that we obtain a certain level of productivity. So, from my side, that would be it. So, I would like to thank you for your attention.
Ladies and gentlemen, as we wrap up the presentation that we've prepared for you, we have another slide, which is about the strategic transformation plan, and we want to talk about two streams of the strategic transformation plan. One is the Efficient Mine, and the other is about procurement and capital expenditure processes, so as of April, we implemented changes as proposed with respect to the proposed strategic transformation plan activities relating to incentive measures. In May of this year, we've added individual longwalls, and so we have longwalls as well as faces have been added where the geological and mining conditions make it possible to do so, and if we look at the results generated by those longwalls and faces that are incorporated under this plan, well, they have output that's up by 54%.
Then, if we look at the procurement and CapEx process, we've identified the ability to optimize another PLN 1.6 billion. So, ladies and gentlemen, this is where we would end the presentation we prepared for you today. But before we go on to the Q&A section, as a matter of tradition, I wanted to give some up-to-date information. Well, today, the process of selecting the CFO has been completed as of tomorrow. Our CFO, Mr. Oleksy , will join us as the CFO, no longer as an acting CFO, but he will officially, as of tomorrow, be our CFO. Then we can go on to the Q&A section. So, let's ask for the questions to be posted. So, ladies and gentlemen, let me go ahead and read the first question. What is the idea to finance activities of the company after you deplete the funds in the closed-end investment fund?
As I mentioned, we have launched a number of actions, a number of activities, measures whose short-term impact should enable us to achieve stability. These actions, as I said, their nature varies. We want to cooperate with the owner, as well as with the social partners, as well as financial institutions. So, we're working intensively, and all of this should enable us to achieve the intended outcome. Thank you very much. The next question: by when or up until when do you have money set aside to pay the salaries of the employees? To which month in this year or to which month in next year? Well, the company assumes that we have funds for payments. By the deadlines that are assumed, having in mind our needs, we have to start profound cost restructuring. Thank you very much.
When will the management board ultimately call off the intended outcome for the strategic transformation plan for 2025? If decisions are made by the management team, the management team will provide the necessary information to the market in the form of a current report as required. I want to tell you that as of Q1 of this year, intense work is underway in terms of securing the liquidity position. As Mr. Oleksy said, we're talking with ZUS and our counterparties, business partners, and we've submitted an application to get a reimbursement of the windfall tax. The management board is doing everything it can, which, according to the management board, would make it possible to stabilize and improve the financial position of the company. Thank you very much.
The next question: Does the management board uphold the plan to have a run rate of 15 million tons in 2026 in line with the strategic transformation plan? Ladies and gentlemen, we are planning next year's output. We're analyzing the schedules for utilizing mine longwalls in the various sections and various mines, having in mind the one-offs that took place this year and looking at what's happened with the strategic transformation plan. We're ending that process, and we're preparing the business plan for 2026. Thank you very much. Next question: Could you update the plan for 2025 since you had four measures and dissatisfactory or unsatisfactory production results in August 2025? We should combine two events: what happened in August and the fire that took place in the Borynia-Zofiówka-Bzie mine and the volume we lost as a result of that one-off. That's 156,000.
So, we continue to declare that this year we should be above, you know, 13 million tons. Thank you very much. What is the impact of the three force majeures on next year's production volumes? Ladies and gentlemen, so, one-offs in the form we've seen, like in January of this year with Knurów-Szczygłowice event and having in mind some of the prevention work that we've done to reduce the methane risk or the fire risk that have a measurable impact on the current year as well as on upcoming years. So, we're doing everything we can to return to those longwalls, which were sealed off temporarily. So, it would be difficult to say when this would happen. So, let's begin from the end.
If we look at what happened in Borynia-Zofiówka-Bzie and the fire or the increase in the fire risk, where we sealed that off, well, the plan is for next year, which is 200,000 tons of coal planned for this next year. If we look at Budryk and securing or sealing off one of those longwalls, we plan to return to that long wall in 2027. So, the loss in 2026 is roughly 100,000 tons. Then we have Knurów-Szczygłowice, and this is the most difficult topic, having in mind the size of that event. So, I would say very cautiously. So, the events of January of this year and their impact, this is around 150,000 tons. That's the total impact. So, the company has started a new long wall BW1 in Budryk with 1.6 million tons of coking coal resources.
Over what period do you believe that this longwall will start to generate a real net profit? We have several stages to open up a longwall. We have to be able to open up the longwall, and then we have the longwall of several hundred meters to a kilometer. The final thing is preparing that mine to be shut down or that longwall to be shut down. This is a longwall, which will be a breakthrough in the Budryk mine because of the coal seam and the parameters that we're going to be able to achieve there. This longwall under our plan should give us 4,000 tons per day. The only limitation we see is a methane risk. Let me remind you that the amount of methane is substantial.
We are trying to solve that through prevention. We want to have an output of 6,000 tons per day. Thank you very much. The next question is: A clear limitation of CapEx, the annual savings. Will this not affect the ability of JSW to mine in the future? What sort of CapEx should we see in the upcoming years, both across the group as well as on an individual mine basis? As we optimize CapEx and limitation, we talk about limiting CapEx. We're not shortcutting ourselves in terms of safety or the future of our mines. As part of each one of our sections of the mines, we have key tasks, which over the upcoming years means we'll have new seams, new levels, and we'll have a large number of longwalls to mine in the future, having in mind the amount of CapEx.
I don't want to talk about that right now because we're wrapping up our work on the financial model for the period 2025-2030. Thank you very much. Next question: the methane regulation enumerates or evidences a lot of uncertainty about the future. Over the upcoming years, what are your expectations for that? What sort of technology for utilizing methane? What sort of technology is your priority, and what sort of funds have you secured for that work on those technologies? So, if you think about the Methane Directive and limitations because of the methane emissions, this is a subject that we treat very seriously at JSW. And having in mind these legal curtailments, it may be possible that certain fines will be assessed if you exceed certain emission limits.
We are extracting a critical raw material, so there are no penalties or fines at present, but we do have to report those overruns or breaches. There's a large number of preventive efforts underway and investment efforts underway. We're thinking about capturing methane in the rock mass in order to be able to continue doing our work to ensure that we can have more longwalls. We want to pipe out the methane, and we want to utilize that methane after we put it into pipes. Of course, the assumption is that there will be a ban on methane emissions. We want to use more and more of the methane commercially as possible. We have good experience in terms of the ability to build a module to generate electricity.
So, we're talking about gas-fired turbines or cogeneration turbines to utilize that methane for other purposes. But the topic about methane originating from mines as a part of the air shaft, here we're working on several projects about the ability to capture methane in the air shafts. This is difficult because the methane concentration is very low. So, we have to have different technologies capable of capturing that, but doing that on a commercially viable. May not matter. The next question: in the press, there was a proposal for JSW to utilize the voluntary redundancy program. So, employees would be moved to the PGG mine, which is supposed to be liquidated, and this would make it possible to utilize the voluntary redundancy program and utilize the state budget. Has the management board scrutinized this proposal and what other proposals are being analyzed?
Ladies and gentlemen, the management board has analyzed that concept. Generally speaking, the management is looking at all of the possibilities afforded by the current legal regulations. So, an application was submitted to the Ministry of State Assets for the company to be subject to these types of regulations. So, these types of scenarios are, of course, analyzed by the management team on an ongoing basis. Thank you very much. Next question: does JSW, is it part of the program, the government program to reduce headcount in the mining sector? Do you have your own plan in terms of how many miners could take advantage of this program without doing harm to the company? Ladies and gentlemen, having in mind the current state of legislation, JSW is not part of that program. That's the first thing.
The second thing is we still do not have a final version of that law. So, that's why we haven't been able to do any surveys with respect to any of the potential that might stem from that. The next question: the steel industry position is quite difficult. We don't see a lot of positive things coming out of the low prices and the low exchange rates. Is the image of JSW improving with respect to its business partners, having in mind what's happening?
So, ladies and gentlemen, we can say the European market for steel has a difficult position. As we said during our presentation, we also know that European steelworks are trying to have some internal market protections against steel imports. As of January of next year, we'll have the CBAM coal tax on the border, which may improve the situation. Unfortunately, the coke market is not protected with any mechanisms whatsoever. As I said during the presentation, Europe is the target market for Indonesian coke producers once India shut down its market. But working together with our business partners is done with long-term contracts where we talk about volumes or price structures.
Discussions about next year are difficult, having in mind the uncertainty, but our talks are constructive. The vast majority of our business partners have worked together with us from the day when the company was set up. So, we've learned how to strike an agreement even when we're dealing with crisis-like situations. So, we have an open and transparent communication policy with one another. We exchange information about our strategic plans, our operating plans, operational plans, having in mind all of the doubts and worries we can have from the marketplace. We don't surprise one another with our decisions. So, our cooperation and collaboration is open, and we exchange information and build our position together on an open and honest communication. And so, we want to continue to be this type of supplier.
We are talking to our business partners as we talk about our desire to stabilize production of coke and coal, both with respect to the quality parameters and the quantity parameters. And this is something that gives us a position to look and gaze into the future with a certain amount of optimism that we're going to be able to stabilize those things. Thank you very much.
The company and its reports talk about the positive impact of incentive mechanisms, having in mind the business plan that in subsequent months will you communicate these types of efforts and what are the costs of running that program this year?
Having in mind the strategic transformation plan, there are a large number of elements which should improve the position of our company. One of the projects is the efficient mine. We want to improve our yield, optimize the utilization of equipment, and the overarching objective is to encourage all employees to participate in this change process. And so, we have an incentive plan for employees who are on the front. So, those employees who are working in direct production efforts. And since April of this year, this has been expanded to include other groups involved in, let's say, corridor works and additional works, basically to put in new work shields and then the liquidation of these longwalls once mining is completed. So, we can brag about some of the effects we've been able to improve the productivity.
But of course, we have to do an overall summary and then make a decision about that. Well, the efficient mine project where we have tens of initiatives, I'm confident that we're going to continue this one. So, the incentive pilot will have a positive opinion from my side, and certain things will need to be tweaked or changed or modified. But this period of summary is something we still have in front of us. Thank you very much.
What's happening with the mechanisms to support financial liquidity? What's happening with the deferrals of ZUS payments, social insurance contribution payments?
If we talk about our talks with the social insurance institutions, ZUS, based on yesterday's decision and the current report we published, we can say that these negotiations were successfully brought to a conclusion for another three months. We're analyzing our financial position. ZUS is analyzing our financial position very with great scrutiny. These are tough negotiations. If we talk about the reimbursement of the windfall tax, as I mentioned, we're working on it intensively to define an instrument that could be utilized here.
A team, a task force has been appointed from a variety of ministries, from the Ministry of State Assets and the Finance Ministry, so this work is very intense. It's very difficult, but at the same time, we're looking for an instrument that would not put us on the litigation path because nothing will come of litigation, so we're preparing a solution, and so, we're working on this quite intensively to persuade the ministers that this possibility does, in fact, exist. Thank you very much.
The next question, recently in response to a question posed by an MP that the Ministry of State Assets is supporting JSW in its efforts to recover PLN 1.6 billion windfall tax. Where are you with that process, in that procedure? Could you give a commentary?
The only thing that I could add to my response to the previous question is that we do enjoy the support of the Ministry of State Assets, and he was involved or inspired the appointment of a task force. If we think about the timing of this process, it would be difficult to define an end date thinking that the reimbursement or refund should be made at the beginning of next year, and that's why the work is so intense, and that's why we're looking to identify an instrument that could be put forward for use.
Of course, one should have in mind that the budgetary position of the country is quite difficult, and discussions with the Finance Minister are not easy. And this is probably something that our colleagues from PGG have noted where there was a rejection to issue securities by the state. And so, we're working on a systemic basis, and we want to put forward our proposal of the solution to the ministers. Thank you very much.
That was the final question we had received. Thank you very much. If there are no other questions, we would like to thank you very cordially for your attendance, for your attention. And so, I would encourage you to visit our website to review the information we've published there. Thank you very much. And I'll say goodbye. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much.