The leader of the second biggest political party (Social Democrats – CSSD) Jiri Paroubek suggest municipal referendum concerning breaking coal mining limits. News follows recent statement of Minister of Trade and Industry, Martin Riman who sees possibility to consider mines case by case. Both mentioned politicians plans to discuss limits at Bilina mine.
Our view:
There are additional 120m tonnes of lignite behind limits at Bilina mine, which represents another 12 years of production. Note that the current government commited to maintain existing coal mining limits. In general, we see the effort to break the mining limits as positive for CEZ, however as we mentioned previously retrofits of CEZ power plants already counts with this additional reserves of 120m tonnes. We expect the news to have no trading impact today.