The management board of KGHM Polska Miedź last December presented its updated strategy for 2019-2023. This is a response to the changing macroeconomic environment and the geopolitical situation, which considerably affect mining industry. After the analysis of key trends across the world, we developed four strategic directions of development, flexibility, ecology, e-industry. That is something that we are putting into practice, and we are achieving successes thanks to the involvement of the management and employees. Thanks to the start of our new furnace or program of deposit exploitation, we succeed in maintaining our production levels. In Sierra Gorda, we were the first successful in getting positive results. In Poland, we pursue a program of developing our own energy sources by 2026. Half of the demand for energy in KGHM will be covered from our own resources, including renewable ones.
We have already opened our first photovoltaic plant, and abroad, we focus on efficiency and financial results. Our mine, Sierra Gorda, after modifications, is now obtaining better results, is more effective. We are achieving those results also thanks to digitization, improved administration, and support for production. We achieved more than PLN 2.5 billion net profit. PLN 2 billion was also our result thanks to the increased external funding. We implemented a model of research and development management. e-industry is now a priority. We are successful in pursuing our KGHM 4.0 program, and that covers all strategic areas, including security and logistics. As a result, we will have consistent management of production, including data management. We implemented schemes for our employees, including workflow and recruitment for internships. Our strategy is pursued based on the ambitious idea of sustainable development and security, as well as enhancing social responsibility.
We significantly improved security indicators in Poland and abroad. We carried out a series of social actions to support our neighbors, families, children, and seniors. COVID-19 has not changed our strategy. Humans remain at the very heart of it, and we support our community. Nitro Air, which is a company within our group, launched production of disinfectants, which we were then able to provide all those in need of those disinfectants. We are flexible, we are efficient, and ecological. Thanks to our strategy, we are successful in developing e-industry and driving the economy. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, we are meeting at a conference on financial results of KGHM, the company, and the group. This meeting is not a direct one. We rely on a video conference. This is the second time again, when our annual results will be commented on without the participation of the audience.
Nevertheless, we have no doubts. Bearing in mind the interest of our stakeholders and all employees, we have to opt for this choice, where transmission is our means of communication. We decided not to postpone the date of publication, and we can boast that we provided our annual reports to the Polish Financial Supervision Authority in a new format, and that was a successful submission. Even here in the studio, to appear in front of you without protective masks, we implemented the necessary procedures to ensure security for all participants of the event. Today, we will present the results for the fourth quarter of 2020 and the whole year 2020.
The effects of our work will be commented by our management board, Marcin Chludziński, President of the Management Board, Katarzyna Kreczmańska-Gigol, Vice President of the Management Board (Finance), Adam Bugajczuk, Vice President of the Management Board, Development, Paweł Gruza, Vice President of the Management Board, International Assets, Radosław Stach, Vice-President of the Management Board, Production. We will start traditionally with comments of our management board regarding last year's events. We will proceed to a Q&A session. Let me announce it right away. If there are any questions that we won't be able to transmit today, you will find them all with full transcript on our website. I would also like to invite you to ask questions. Traditionally, you know our email address. Ladies and gentlemen, let's start our conference.
Mr. Marcin Chludziński, President of the Management Board, the floor is yours.
Ladies and gentlemen, do you remember March 2020? That was not a very long time ago, just a year ago. Empty shelves in shops when people stockpiled and queues that had never been seen by the younger generation. Do you remember searching for even a single pair of protective gloves or exorbitant prices of disinfectants? A few months before, rumors appeared about a mysterious virus in Wuhan in China, but nobody thought then that we were facing the greatest crisis of the modern world, the pandemic which would paralyze the functioning of the world. Nobody was prepared for that, neither Poland nor anyone in the world. All contingency management programs were insufficient, and none of those programs envisaged a disaster on that scale. Office buildings, health centers became empty overnight.
Polish people returned on a mass scale to Poland within the Safe Return Home Program. Nobody knows what will happen in the future. Nobody makes long-term forecasts. Well-known analysts refrain from making comments. Some enterprises, also in our industry, dramatically reduce their operations or discontinue them altogether. Our activities are dominated by two themes, security of our employees and security of production. Large part of business in Poland now operates in a remote mode. People work from home, but of course, we cannot allow miners to work from home. It is technically not feasible, and every single day with production, with sales counts. In this situation, we are facing a dramatic shortage of information, and we have to manage risk in this turbulent, unpredictable environment. We set as our priority the safety and security of our employees. We make bold decisions.
We were the first to implement thermal visual temperature measurements. In Nitroerg, we also introduced our new sanitary procedures, which were then deployed in other plants. Most importantly, we give security to our team that we will make every effort to keep jobs. Copper prices are dropping to record low prices. Such prices had not been recorded for a decade. Keeping those prices for a longer time would mean production below the break-even level. Transport is slower. We have delays in deliveries. While the government is considering how to cope with remote education that was introduced all of a sudden, we are trying to cope with the falling prices of copper, problems with logistics, problems with deliveries. What are we doing in this situation? First of all, our effective strategy.
Back in 2018, we assumed that the time of stability across the world was coming to an end, and a roller coaster future was ahead of us. Unpredictable developments in business environment and in the market. Our response to those considerations was assuming great flexibility and adjusting to the new conditions and greater flexibility in business. That is helping us extremely in combating the virus. We have record high security level, and we maintain jobs for thousands of our people. Secondly, communication. Above all, communication to our employees. We use all effective communication channels. We know that getting through to sanitary information line is hard. That is why we have information line which is available around the clock. We respond to doubts of our miners and their families. We explain to them our procedures and the point of following them.
We use intranet, extranet, and a special short message text, a special TV and company newspaper. We inform them, educate them. We combat fake news. When posters are no longer effective, we have mobile billboards. When we're unable to meet our managers face-to-face, we prepare weekly bulletins for them with issues that are of greatest concern to our employees. We make every effort to be concrete, honest, and specific in this communication. Specific to the point to which almost complete uncertainty of the future allows us to do. Thirdly, we dramatically improve security of our employees. Right from the beginning of the pandemic, we have been equipping our people with protective measures. We disinfect our facilities regularly, machines. We introduce a series of minor but significant initiatives. We have shift work in offices to allow staggered presence of people.
We keep nerves of steel to allow staggered presence of people. We keep nerves of steel. That is in the DNA of the mining culture. We have this professional ethics that forces us to conduct rescue operations. Even in this situation, even the toughest miners in situations of emergency and threat lose their regular control. We also have efforts across the organization throughout Poland. In March, which was the most difficult month, we distributed 20,000 liters of disinfectants. We organized temporary hospitals in Lower Silesia. In our center for months, we have a center for COVID patients. We donate funds through our foundation to health centers. Not long time ago, there were widespread shortages of even the basic devices in hospitals. We provide hospitals and health centers with protective equipment. We take care of families and of our neighbors. Our volunteers prepare meals, help people in doing shopping.
We know that those activities can increase wellness of entire social group. We organize psychological assistance to the most vulnerable groups. We planned that 120 telephone consultations would be more or less the average in a week, but that was the number of calls within an hour. We take measures to reduce the impact of possible depression. We ensure psychological assistance, emotional assistance to those who are completely exhausted by the situation. Some sources say that post-traumatic stress disorder will be one of the consequences of the pandemic, and it can affect as much as 70% of the population.
2020 was a dramatic year. Our GDP fell drastically in the EU and in the world. Virus literally infected key global economies, causing alarming levels of occupancy in hospitals and precariousness. As one of very few companies, we keep our plants running without one day of downtime. The production in the group comes to 907 million tons of copper, which wasn't achieved by accident. It is a result of our crisis management, solidarity, prudent decisions, fast response, and trust. A year later, after March 2020, I am proud to report that this has been working, and we are working achieving A grades or A+ grades. A record EBITDA 2020 came to PLN 6.6 billion. The net profit of the capital group came to PLN 1.79 billion. The leverage fell from 1.5% - 0.9%, and the cash flow increased by more than PLN 1.5 billion. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you, President, for this comment. Now over to Radosław Stach, and let's hear about our production performance.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, while I am moving to discuss the production performance of the capital group, a very good level of 709,000 of tons of copper and extremely robust performance in the Sierra Gorda mine, which increased its output versus 2019. silver production and precious metals and molybdenum both domestically and internationally will be discussed in later slides. Before I start discussing the domestic production and the developments in mines and smelters and our units, let me cast some more light on safety, our priority topic in 2020. Results are impressive. 20% more safety in place as a result of initiatives and culture-changing efforts in our company, and the credit really goes to all our people.
We have been recognized by the Golden Charter of a Safe Work Leader, which proves that we are moving ahead in the right direction, which makes us proud going forward. As far as our production performance in domestic units are concerned, copper and electrolytic copper and silver, this performance has been stable. No peaks and troughs, which means that we've weathered the storms in 2020. With respect to silver production, that's 1,400 tons in 2019, that was a record at that time. We wanted to carry it over to 2020. However, silver is a performance-related or output-related metal, which is directly related to the amount of extracted ore. We launched a number of efficiency projects to improve the efficiency of our plant and machinery, and to boost our cost efficiency.
I would like to highlight one of the projects that boosted our production last year, and that was a supply chain project which integrated three processes, resource planning process, supplier procurement process and inventory management. Now, that integration and digitization and automation of these processes translated into enormous cost savings in real time, and we could watch the results as we rolled out the program, in the fourth quarter of 2020. Overall, in that hard year, as the President mentioned, in the precarious market, price-wise and otherwise, our output has defended its high levels. The credit goes to strong management decision and the commitment of all our people. Thank you very much. Now, foreign assets Vice President, Paweł Gruza. Paweł Gruza, I'm sorry.
Good morning, or good afternoon, indeed. Ladies and gentlemen, 2020 will be marked as a pandemic year, pandemic without borders.
In our jurisdictions outside of Poland, the pandemic status was a hard one, was definitely alarming. As a result of efforts launched in Poland, we managed to maintain continuity of our business, which was top priority. Safety of people, discipline, these were the two labels that we could use to describe our Chilean and North American operations. In other mines operated by our competitors, some of the safety measures didn't prove successful. There were cases of downtime and stoppage. We did not have those issues as we gradually optimized our Sierra Gorda operations, which was a low-cost optimization effort, where you could achieve a very robust production performance. You can see this on the slide, and they are speaking for themselves, in fact.
KGHM International suffered from more setbacks as a result of the quality of all the content of metal in the extracted rock and lower outputs. Lower outputs here had not been set off in 2020. To complete the picture of our international assets, I would like to discuss the financial performance. In the first six months of the year or in the first quarter, in fact, we saw a major risk of falling prices. We launched a number of cost efforts, both on OpEx and CapEx ends. We also reviewed our headcount and employment structure to bring costs down dramatically. We also restructured KGHM International, and at the end of the day, the financial performance of our international assets is highly positive, and it contributes enormously to the entire successful result of the group. Thank you very much.
Now, we've started on the financial front.
Let's hear much more from Professor Katarzyna Kreczmańska-Gigol, VP Finance of the group.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chludziński has already mentioned that it is since 2018 that we have been getting ready to embrace the new developments in the world economy. We have been anticipating developments that can lead to poorer market performance, lower capital performance or recession, in fact. The bull market, which persisted for so many years could, in fact, be challenged. We had not anticipated the crisis coming from something that we today call a global pandemic. We did make provisions for a rainy day in our financial portfolio. In fact, the three years of efforts that we put in to make sure that our financial performance is stable, helped us enormously, in 2020. Revenue from contracts came higher by 4%, vis-a-vis 2019.
2019 was a good year, I would like to emphasize that. 2020 was in fact a turbulent one, and no one really knew what would happen the next day, in fact. Notably, our financial performance, with respect to contract revenue, is higher by PLN 909 million. The unit cost performance, again, in the hard year as it was, this cost came lower. It was squeezed by 6% to 1.9 in C1. In the C1 cost, we already include the higher cost of the copper tax, of the mining and mineral extraction tax. The cost performance would've been even higher if it wasn't for the tax charge. Furthermore, KGHM Polska Miedź S.A., the mother company, C1 cost was reduced by 7% against 2019. At Sierra Gorda, the cost declined even further by 16%. In KGHM International, this cost came higher, and it was the highest in the segment.
That resulted from lower copper sales volumes. Partly it was offset by higher revenue on associated metals sales. Now let's look at EBITDA. Something that analysts are mainly looking at, and it is also critical for us. EBITDA versus 2019 is higher by 27%. Note that EBITDA is higher by PLN 839 million in the mother company, KGHM Polska Miedź S.A. It's higher at Sierra Gorda by PLN 686 million. We have a lower EBITDA in other business divisions, but these divisions include companies that were vulnerable, and they were strongly affected by the pandemic. We had a lower EBITDA in KGHM I. As I said already, this resulted from lower sales volumes and the termination of the DMC contract in the U.K.
Ladies and gentlemen, as regards our net result, it was higher in 2020 by 26%. What I would like to draw your attention to is that our net result in the group was mostly affected by the change in revenues, which were higher by PLN 909 million, and we had better result on joint ventures. I would also like to mention that with regard to costs by type, we had higher costs by type, and they were higher by PLN 47 million.
However, to a large extent, this was due to higher remuneration. We had an increase in remuneration as a consequence of our social commitment agreements, which we follow in spite of different conditions. We had a copper tax increase by PLN 105 million and higher depreciation. These were actually factors beyond our control. However, as for other activities, we saw a reduction in the third-party services, which declined by PLN 429 million.
This is, ladies and gentlemen, the result of action that we consciously took. This has already been mentioned, first of all, cost discipline across the company that we maintained in spite of the difficult situation. As regards cash flows, if you look at our cash flow statement, you will see that the effect of last year is very positive. I would also like to draw your attention to one item, change in working capital. This is the effect of action that we took starting from the moment when we announced our new strategy. We announced then that we would release cash flows in connection with the steps we were taking, and these included implementation on a large scale of factoring debt of the group in KGHM Polska Miedź. That is an indicator of which we are proud, net debt to EBITDA 0.9.
That is an excellent result, especially if you bear in mind that at the end of 2019 it was 1.5. Please also look at net debt. It went down by almost 1 billion PLN. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, professor, for presenting details of the financial results. I would like to invite vice president for development, Adam Bugajczuk, who will give us details regarding development and investment in KGHM.
Ladies and gentlemen, before I discuss details of our results in development and investment, I would like to say that my area also kept pace with the rest of the company, as a result of which we succeeded in completing all investments, both financially and substantively, which contributed to the fantastic results that were achieved by the company and that have already been presented by my colleagues.
We spent PLN 2.48 billion and in analytical terms, the distribution of this spending was very proportionate with very small differences. As for our key development investments, of course, we have the expansion of the Żelazny Most Tailings Storage Facility. I would like to give you some details about the stage at which we are present. Now the investment is complete in 88%. As regards the segregation station, which is an element of the expansion of the whole facility, we are at 78%. As for the Deposit Access Program, we prepared more than 40 kilometers of corridors for mining work. BG-1 shaft was deepened to over 1,300 meters and after all problems that we experienced with water, we are moving forward. In GG-2, we are also moving forward. We managed to agree terms and conditions of the financial side of this investment, and now we are proceeding with administrative efforts.
As for BAT conclusions and environmental efforts, PLN 161 million was spent last year on this purpose, and both in Głogów and in Legnica, we managed to complete all our key investments. Now I would like to discuss briefly the depletion of our Głogów deposits. We have always talked about that, and you can find yourselves that we now have all key indicators at levels that were higher than in previous years. With regard to other key investments, while also key investments, although not as spectacular as the Żelazny Most development or preparation of mining exploitation. We managed to buy a few presses, pump station in Adamówka, which is also a part of the Żelazny Most program, construction of segregation station and also refurbishment of Głogów plant.
This year, PLN 168 million was spent on mining investments, PLN 161 million was linked to BAT conclusions, and the other elements related to ecological efforts are shown in detail in the graph in the materials. For renewable energy sources, we have already completed certain investments. We have built the first photovoltaic farm at Legnica copper mine. We are now working on other investments which will contribute to the achievement of the target of 50% of energy coming from our own sources. This is a target we are pursuing very consistently, and you can see in our presentation the breakdown of the areas where we will accomplish those tasks. Thank you very much.
Thank you for presenting the details of our investments. Ladies and gentlemen, we have shown you our production, financial results, also the developments in our foreign assets and investment.
I would like to ask President Chludziński for a brief summary of our efforts.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have experienced a very difficult period. It was not an easy year. It was not an easy moment in the history of our company. By the way, our company celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, which is a quite decent age. Although we are not old yet, we are full of life and energy. We have to keep in mind that pandemic continues. There is continued risk to health, and we are also combating the effects of the pandemic on our operations. Our crisis units are adjusting our procedures and modes of operation to what the situation brings. It is worth saying that also the term of office of the management board is coming to an end.
On the 15th of April, a new term of office of the management board will start. I would like to show you some big numbers that illustrate what happened in the past two years. A lot of activities were undertaken in various dimensions, savings, process efficiency, logistics, all those projects, hundreds of projects and thousands of people who worked on those individual themes. We started in 2018, and now we are drawing to an end of the term of office in mid second quarter 2021. EBITDA was PLN 4.7 billion. Now we are at over PLN 6 billion. Sales + 15%. Well, that is on revenues, and in volumes, 30%. We now, cost C1, which is a very important parameter for us, had a 12% decrease in spite of higher production. There was the higher tax, which drives this cost. 12% decrease is a very significant achievement.
Net debt to EBITDA, which was a difficult ratio, and a lot of energy was put into improving this ratio. Also, the exchange rate of US dollar is important, but 44% change for the better, that is to reduce this ratio, from 1.6 - 0.9 is a very significant change. copper production, that is our daily activity, that we are trying to stabilize. Apart from stabilization over the past two years, in fact, it was a bit longer than two years, two and a half years to be exact. From 634 tons, we went up by 12%. There are thousands of people working for those results. I can say with full responsibility that this is a huge success of the entire company, KGHM, the management board, and I would like to thank the management board for the effort that has been put in. We covered a long way.
We are still on the road to our ultimate targets, but we have already covered a lot of ground. I would like to thank Kasia Kreczmańska-Gigol for being with us. Because of her professional plans, she will end her work for KGHM at the end of this term of office, but I would like to extend my thanks to her for contributing to our results. You have been a very important contribution to our results. As for things that are still ahead of us, ladies and gentlemen, I think we cannot say that everything is under our control. There are a lot of challenges ahead of us. Apart from the pandemic, we have ESG challenge, sustainable development, carbon footprint. This year, we are starting our work on a comprehensive development of a strategy that will determine the impact of ESG on our long-term activities this year.
We will also have a review of the strategy to see what needs to be changed, what needs to be rethought in the context of global developments. We have flexibility built into our strategy, but this is the time to have a closer look at the strategy, revisit it. Of course, there are capital expenditures, which are always necessary. Investments are always needed to continue production, and the prospects are very good. Copper, as regards macroeconomic parameters, is in a very good situation, and demand, as we assume, will not decrease but will go up.
We want to invest as much as possible to get as much of that product, copper and silver. To continue our production, there are other business projects under pipeline. We are strongly interested in bioside aspects of copper or silver. There is much to be done here. We are looking out for opportunities, and we want to certainly embark on those as we move forward. Thank you very much. We have to recognize our madam professor to thank her cordially for her performance, which is an exceptional gesture in a financial performance conference, you will admit. As we present our financial performance, we are also celebrating the end of one of our management board tenures, and it is coming on the 17th of April. This is not the end of the conference. We will have a Q&A, moderated by Janusz Krystosiak, head of investor relations at KGHM.
ir@kghm.com is the address you may send your queries to. Our timing slot is limited, we will not be able to take and answer all questions, but we will post both the questions and answers on our website soon. Over to Janusz Krystosiak, head of investor relations.
Thank you. Good afternoon. We have quite a large number of questions, they are coming as I speak. I'm trying to cluster them into common headings, I will not read out all of them. Let's go. This is a question about our Sierra Gorda mine. What are the future plans with respect to KGHM investments in Sierra Gorda? Are we still considering divesting this asset? What is the status of the process, if appropriate? Over to our colleague responsible for international assets.
Now, Sierra Gorda is a strategic asset at KGHM.
We are not planning to change our equity position in this operation. We have been focusing, and we are focusing on what is bringing the best performance for us. We are focusing on optimizing production processes, and it appears we still have some headroom for that with quite low capital expenditures. This is going to be a very economical optimization.
A question from Justyna Piszczatowska, Green-news.pl. What is the progress in photovoltaic projects? What is the capacity that KGHM is planning to launch by year-end?
Large photovoltaic projects relate to huge upfront investments with respect to the foundation and the spatial planning and zoning. We are going to launch some of our projects, will be a larger capacity volume than last year as we launched our Legnica project.
We're still acquiring concessions and land as we speak, so the final result will be reflective of how well we have concluded those discussions. Paweł, cleaner energy. At the end of 2020, net debt to EBITDA came to 0.9 from 1.5 at the end of previous year.
Are you planning to continue to reduce this ratio?
Our debt position is one of our key targets with respect to financial stability. We want our debt to be plateaued at a safe level.
Are we going to have lower levels of debt? Well, let me put it this way.
The debt ratio is both affected by the level of debt and the level of EBITDA. 0.9 is an impressive level, and we want to continue below 2.0.
Thank you. Thomas Brzezinski again is asking a question about the budget of KGHM and specifically CapEx.
The management is planning to spend PLN 2.9 billion in Polish operations and PLN 0.3 billion in international projects and Polish supporting activities. Can you give us examples of largest CapEx projects that will be implemented this year? Let me make a short introduction and then I will hand over to Adam. The increase of our capital expenditure is part of our philosophy, which is to improve our access to mining operations and mining capacity. Internationally, you see that Sierra Gorda is performing well because it is optimizing its costs and its production. We are building on existing assets and we want to extract as much value out of them as possible. Therefore, capital expenditures is not that high, if I may comment. As we plan to continue extracting more value from existing assets, we are not planning to increase expenditure into more assets.
Yes, indeed, we are focusing on projects that are adding value to the technology process. The Deposit Access Program will continue, of course, where we're going to increase the number of square meters of our tunnels and the shafts and the air conditioning and the conditioning station. This is going to be a landmark project. Żelazny Most, this obviously will be developed and the environmental and BAT conclusions related investments will continue as they have for some years already as part of our strategy. This is a reflection of our efforts to adapt to the market opportunities and to the needs in terms of our production performance.
Mr. Jakub Szkopek from mBank is asking about output in 2020 in Głęboki Głogów, Deep Głogów. Can this output be increased or can it be expected to grow in 2021 and at what rate?
Deep Głogów is obviously about the future of KGHM. We mentioned this project so many times in previous conferences. We kept saying that we would like to continue growing output and we follow the deposit. I don't want to attach any numbers to the growth rate. However, we will increase the extraction of ore from this site.
Jakub is asking another question. In 2020, energy consumption in the group was higher by 8%, while the production of dry ore fell down, which meant that the operation was energy-intensive, and how are you going to plan to keep the energy efficiency ratio or energy intensity ratio?
Now, we are committed to looking to such technologies and processes that decrease the use or consumption of energy. I would have to go into minute detail into the nitty-gritty of the processes because energy is very much process-related.
By the way, we have not just the mining, but also the processing and the downstream activities. I believe that this result is very good and the certificate that we have imposes an obligation on us to keep lowering the energy consumption. By the way, let me add that we have launched and commissioned major investment projects, and they are electricity intensive, in fact. In fact, all of the replacement projects have helped us reduce energy use or improve energy efficiency by about 10%, which is a trend that we're going to continue.
Now, a question about safety. I will not indicate the author, but let me read. Whilst the pandemic is bringing restriction, has this translated into higher safety levels? Is it caused by the pandemic or some previous efforts put forward by management earlier?
I believe that safety is critical, and we have always been committed to doing our utmost. It's not just during the pandemic, safety is part and parcel of our strategy. We wanted to bring accidents down and to improve our safety levels. Rado, can you comment on this, please?
Yes, we have launched a number of programs. The strategic program and thinking about the consequences or impacts. Each year we try to focus on a specific aspect of safety. I don't agree that because of the pandemic and the pandemic-related procedures, safety is better. In fact, we launched our safety agenda in 2018, and we continued in 2019 and 2020. I wouldn't make the connection here between the pandemic restrictions and safety. These are two different aspects, but they add up together at the end of the day.
Obviously, the pandemic-related measures improved our health performance, no doubt about that. The performance and the rate of improvement, 30% on a year-on-year basis really comes from our hard work across the recent years. Jacek Sieja, Radio Plus.
A question to President Adam Bugajczuk. The current copper prices can be optimistic, but the COVID situation is precarious as it was in 2020. Will investments be at risk? Are you planning the photovoltaic projects?
Of course, the level of uncertainty is high, but because in 2020 we in fact succeeded in completing all the major financial or technical investments, there's no reason why we shouldn't repeat this success this year. This is obviously an ambitious budget, but we are consistent and robust. I believe that all items of the plan will be implemented, including the photovoltaic farms.
I have a question, and in fact, there are several questions in this thread. Dividend. Dividend for 2020. One of the questions actually portrays a scenario, if not for 2020, could we hope for a down dividend payment for 2021? I'm smiling, but let me ask President for a comment.
This has been a traditional question in our financial performance conferences, and in fact, we haven't been paying our dividend recently. I do understand this question. It's a legitimate one. Now, we are approaching the statutory time of announcing, and we're going to use that time to make this decision as prudent as possible. Kamila Wajszczuk, ISBnews.
Will KGHM see a further reduction in the C1 cost?
I can say that this parameter of cost C1 is something that we constantly monitor and think about. We are able to prove that this cost is decreasing. It has to be said that to some extent it is not only within our control. For example, it is driven partially by a tax. We are trying to keep it as low as possible.
A question about Login 24. I think it is going to be addressed to me. The question is to the representative of Investor Relations. What is the reason of the decline in share prices in recent weeks? The question was concise. The answer should be concise as well. I would like to say that we are trying to help you in understanding business. We are trying to build business and its value, build value for the company.
I would just like to draw your attention to a variable environment in which we operate in the capital market, in the raw materials market. Recent weeks have been characterized by fluctuations in share market, and commodities market also has its additional conditions. Also, behavior of currencies are a factor here. Prices of copper are definitely influenced by the changes in commodity exchanges. In recent week, we have experienced particular variability according to recent comments and analyses. That is mainly due to the pandemic, the extended lockdowns, and uncertainty as to when these might be lifted or extended. The uncertainty related to the pandemic drives the prices of commodities and our primary commodity, that is copper. In recent days, we have seen a strengthening of the dollar, and that in turn, also affected prices of commodities.
A development from recent days, we have seen significant dynamics, both ups and downs in asset valuations. Paradoxically, also in the situation when of declining profitability, the variability is so significant, I cannot give you a straightforward answer.
Let me add something to what Janusz has said. Indeed, recently in stock exchanges in New York and Europe, this is what has been going on and we have to follow those developments. It is also worth mentioning that last year, and this conference is about last year, our share value increased and had quotations over 200%, our benchmark is set very high at the moment.
Question from Paweł Puchalski, Santander. Maybe I can combine it with another question again from the same person.
The situation on the foreign assets, acceleration of efforts related to the launch of Victoria Mine and in general, the situation with assets in KGHM International. Paweł Gruza.
We are investing in Victoria. Some of those investments result from our obligation to comply with environmental regulations, and some of them result from our willingness to understand this deposit better, to explore it better. I think that is it as regards Victoria. Regarding other assets, we have a certain procedure in place, a certain way of thinking about our foreign assets. As any company in our industry, we evaluate our assets and we qualify them as strategic or non-strategic, and then accordingly, action is taken.
One more question from Paweł Puchalski. Why does KGHM not participate in offshore wind projects, which would considerably modify the profile of energy consumption in the company, and CO2 emissions profile as well?
As for offshore programs, KGHM doesn't have to participate in everything that is taking place around. There are a lot of companies that are interested in those investments. We have more immediate challenges in the field of energy, also linked to the philosophy that we had adopted, namely, that it would be best and most efficient for us, also in terms of economic efficiency of our investments, would be to connect green energy sources directly to our recipients. That is two, our mining plants. This gives us the best economic result. This is what we are focusing on.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm looking through the questions and most of the threads have already been mentioned. If there are questions that we have not answered, we will provide answers as soon as possible, and we will post them directly on our website. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, we could spend hours, talking for hours on end about KGHM. This is our work and our passion. We are over one hour in this transmission. We do not want to tax your patience too much. Thank you very much for your attention, for all your questions. I would like to thank you on behalf of the whole management board. I invite you to the next conference next quarter. Thank you very much. Goodbye.