JSW 2024 slides reveal steep financial decline as coal and coke markets weaken

Introduction & Market Context

Jastrzebska Spotka Weglowa SA (JSW) presented its fourth quarter and full-year 2024 results in April 2025, revealing a significant deterioration in financial performance amid challenging market conditions. The Polish coal and coke producer faced substantial headwinds from declining global commodity prices and reduced production volumes, resulting in a steep net loss for the year.

The company’s presentation highlighted how global market trends severely impacted its business, with worldwide steel production declining 0.8% in 2024 compared to 2023, although European Union production increased by 2.6%. These market dynamics, combined with falling coal and coke prices, created a challenging operating environment for JSW throughout 2024.

As shown in the following comparison of key market trends between 2023 and 2024, JSW faced significant price pressures across its product portfolio:

Quarterly Performance Highlights

JSW’s financial results for 2024 showed substantial declines across all key performance metrics compared to the previous year. The company reported a net loss of PLN 7,284.7 million for 2024, a dramatic reversal from the PLN 997.1 million profit recorded in 2023. EBITDA collapsed by 92.8% to PLN 396.0 million, down from PLN 5,517.4 million in the previous year.

The following slide provides a comprehensive overview of JSW Group’s performance metrics for 2024 compared to 2023:

Coal production declined by 9.3% to 12,250.9 thousand tons in 2024, while coke production fell by 8.6% to 3,064.6 thousand tons. These volume decreases, combined with significant price drops for both coal and coke, resulted in a 26.2% reduction in sales revenues to PLN 11,325.8 million.

The company’s quarterly financial performance showed a deteriorating trend throughout 2024, with the fourth quarter recording the largest losses:

Detailed Financial Analysis

A closer examination of JSW’s revenue decline reveals that both volume and price factors contributed to the 26.2% year-over-year decrease. The company provided a detailed breakdown of these factors in its presentation:

The most significant negative impacts came from coking coal price changes (PLN -1,274.7 million) and coking coal sales volume reductions (PLN -691.1 million). Steam coal also contributed substantially to the revenue decline, with volume impacts of PLN -547.0 million and price impacts of PLN -450.2 million.

Despite the challenging financial environment, JSW maintained its capital expenditure program, with total investments on an accrual basis reaching PLN 4,913.1 million in 2024, only slightly below the PLN 4,909.6 million spent in 2023. The coal segment remained the primary focus of investments:

Market Environment

JSW’s presentation provided extensive context on the global coking coal and coke markets, highlighting several key events that influenced prices throughout 2023 and 2024. Supply disruptions in Australia, demand fluctuations in India, and accidents at mines in Australia and the USA all contributed to price volatility.

The following slide illustrates the key price drivers in the global coking coal and coke market during this period:

The company’s sales strategy focuses primarily on European markets for coking coal, while its coke business extends to overseas markets, particularly India. However, market challenges were evident in the declining relationship between JSW’s product prices and benchmark market prices, especially in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Strategic Initiatives

Despite the significant financial challenges faced in 2024, JSW maintained its commitment to long-term strategic objectives for the 2022-2030 period. These objectives include maintaining a 25% EBITDA margin, ensuring a stable funding structure, improving operational efficiency, enhancing safety standards, and reducing the company’s carbon footprint by 30% compared to 2018 levels.

The following slide outlines JSW’s progress against these strategic objectives:

The company is also pursuing revenue diversification, aiming to increase its European coking coal sales from 24% in 2024 to 40% by 2030, while expanding its global coke sales from 26% to 40% over the same period:

JSW continues to invest in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives despite its financial difficulties. In 2024, the company spent PLN 189.7 million on environmental efforts, captured over 145 million m³ of methane, and maintained a CDP climate change rating of C. Social initiatives included PLN 1.6 billion spent on occupational health and safety and 900 science scholarships awarded.

Forward-Looking Statements

Looking ahead, JSW faces significant challenges in meeting its strategic objectives given the current market environment. The company’s actual performance in 2024 fell substantially short of its targets, with coal production at 12.3 million tons versus a plan of 15.3 million tons, and coke production at 3.1 million tons versus a plan of 3.6 million tons.

The company’s product quality objectives remain focused on maintaining stable CSR/CRI parameters for both coking coal and coke, with targets of CSR ≥ 60, CRI ≤ 30 for coking coal and CSR ≥ 62, CRI ≤ 29 for coke by 2030:

JSW’s Strategic Transformation Plan will be crucial for navigating the current market challenges and positioning the company for recovery. While the presentation did not provide detailed guidance for 2025, the significant gap between 2024 performance and long-term objectives suggests that substantial operational and financial improvements will be necessary in the coming years.

Full presentation:

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