During the interview with Stanisław Tokarski, a newly-appointed Management Board Chairman we talk about the company development directions, new coal technologies, scientific research in progress and adjusting PKE SA to the stock-exchange listed company requirements.

Please accept my congratulations on being appointed Południowy Koncern Energetyczny Management Board Chairman and right away would you be so kind as to remind us of your career path.

I graduated from the University of Science and Technology in Cracow. I started working after my studies in 1983 for Energomontaż II in Cracow. Two years later I was an employee of Jaworzno III Power Plant where I started as an electrician – a man equipped with a tool bag walking down the cable tunnels getting to know the power plant from this perspective. Next I worked for the repairs department later in the investment department as the supervisor. From 1991 to 1996 – in the period of dynamic changes – I worked as the head power plant restructuring specialist and from 1996 as the strategy and management director in the power plant. After that since 2001 my work for Południowy Koncern Energetyczny commenced as the strategy and management director with a two-year break during which I worked for Tauron Polska Energia SA as the Management Board Vice-chairman, strategy and development director.

You expertise on the power industry in the European Union structures is a widely known fact. It is not purely theoretical knowledge as it results from your activities and participation in numerous European and domestic organizations dealing with the energy in a wide sense of the term. Can you please fill the readers in with this side of your activity?

One of the most crucial things I should mention is my membership in an international organization called Eurelectric based in Brussels which draws up opinions for the European Committee on the basic legal acts – directives concerning the power engineering sector and the fuel sector. Currently I represent Polish electrical energy generators in the organization. I am also a member of the Polish Electricity Association Managing Committee and the Polish Committee for Standardization.

One should add that you are fluent in English and from 1999 i.e. from the title granting date you have been the General Mining Director of the 3rd rank.

The most important fact is that I head the company right now; the company I co-created. The company which ten years ago was an example and a trailblazer of the consolidation trend in the Polish power sector.

So what can the personnel, being at the same time the shareholders of the company, expect right now – revolutionary changes or more likely the evolutionary ones?

Simple changes are well behind us. Current transformations which will have to occur are definitely more complicated in their nature as they require completely different tools so as to be completed successfully. I myself am not a revolutionary type and I see no need for this type of action. On the other side, I am a person who constantly seeks changes in order to improve what I do.

You are also well-know for the consistency of your actions…

It is true but this is only to emphasize that one should not expect a revolution in PKE.

We are getting ready for the difficult changes which will foster the organization reshaping and adjusting it to the new functions. It will be connected with the PKE role change in Tauron Group and the shutdown of particular power facilities, construction of new ones the operation of which will be in line with brand new standards. It is a process planned to be implemented over the years which we will carry our gradually.

I do know Koncern well as I worked for this company since the day of its establishment, I also chaired the company supervisory board. Nonetheless, the company underwent intensive transformations so I need a little more time to see certain aspects more clearly. Our organization is in the middle of reshaping and we should be constantly aware of the fact that, above all, we work for the shareholders of the holding and that among them there are also our employees. It is a new quality we have been facing for a short time since June 30 i.e. the stock exchange debut of Tauron.

Will Południowy Koncern Energetyczny continue reaching for the new solutions i.e. clean coal technologies?

As far as the investment area is concerned, we deal with activities of two types: commercial ones – where we construct new installations and then we apply field-proven, high efficiency technologies where the so-called emissions count therefore hard coal does not have to be the only fuel and the experimental ones. The latter ones are also carried out in two areas: the National Research and Development Center projects – high efficiency power generation with carbon capture where the Silesian University of Technology is the leader and coal gasification project – Cracow University of Technology executes research on this technology and I personally participate in it; and there is also a project on the oxy-combustion carried out by the Chęstochowa University of Technology. These are worth dozens of millions. We ,as PKE and Tauron on a wider scale, will contribute to them. We should not forget that these are research. In other words an attempt of inventing new coal technologies as a future solution to coal-related problems.

The second area is the European initiative the so-called KIC (Knowledge and Innovation Centers) where a group of Polish institutes and universities concentrated around the Cracow University of Technology as well as companies including Tauron Group work on clean coal technologies.

Tauron Polska Energia – therefore indirectly also Południowy Koncern Energetyczny – is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. It means the necessity of adjusting the company to the stock exchange reality. What will be the changes in PKE related to this requirement like?

It goes without saying that we are facing modernization and restructuring process. Obviously, these transformations will be more complex when compared to the ones we have dealt with so far. Today, we report to our shareholders – including the company staff – for the share value. I do not wish to talk about details at this moment – the right time will come later. Nowadays, due to the fact we are a part of Tauron Group we have one superior goal – we need care of constant company value increase.

Thank you for the interview.

Andrzej Cygielski