In recent years, the outsourcing of a variety of different activities has been more commonly observed in the coal mining industry. This is connected with employing workers by external companies. These practices are not necessarily perceived as good ones by mines’ employees because they may influence their remuneration directly or indirectly. Firstly, as external employees treat work in mining company as a source of a quick income. Therefore, external companies often calculate their employees compensation not based on working time (i.e. hours) but on the basis of a specific, accomplished task. Such employment is called piecework, whereas the workers employed in this kind of system are called output workers/piece workers. Therefore, to receive higher wages in these companies, employees carry out their tasks faster and more efficiently. This, in turn, can affect the standards of workers employed by the mining company. In addition, outsourced workers are often retired miners, so the costs incurred by employers are significantly lower. In addition, in order to not to lose the retirement benefit, they work for a much lower rate. On the other hand, outsourced work can be done in a hurry (on a piece rate), which is not conducive to compliance with safety regulations, therefore mine employees may feel unsafe. This article aims to present how mine employees assess outsourcing underground works. In order to achieve this aim, a survey was carried out among employees of one of the coal mine companies in Silesia. Participants of the survey were randomly chosen among underground miners employed at one mine company. The survey was anonymous which obviously might have influenced respondents’ honesty in answering. The survey was carried out in several mines of the chosen company. In some of them the survey was carried out online and in the remaining ones it was filled out on paper. Analyzing the survey results allowed for a better understanding of the reasons of the disapproval of outsourcing underground works. This, in turn, may be used for better human resources management including, in particular, planning an incentive based pay system.

The level of sales of a given good depends largely on the distribution network. An analysis of the distribution network allows companies to optimize business activity, which improves the efficiency and profitability of a company’s sales with an immediate effect on profit growth. The so-called spatial analysis is highly useful in this regard. The paper presents an analysis of the network of authorized dealers of the Polish Mining Group for the Opolskie Province. The analysis was done using GIS (SIP) tools. The purpose of the analysis was to present tools that could be used to verify an existing distribution network, to optimize it, or to create a new sales outlet. The prresented tools belong to GIS operations used to process data stored in Spatial Information System resources. These are so-called geoprocessing tools. The article contains several spatial analyses, which results in choosing the optimum location of the distribution point in terms of the defined criteria. The used tools include a spatial intersection and sum. Geocoding and the so-called cartodiagram were also used. The presented analysis can be performed for both the network of authorized retailers within a region, a city or an entire country. The presented tools provide the opportunity to specify the target consumers, areas where they are located and areas of potential consumer concentration. This allows the points of sale in areas with a high probability of finding new customers to be located, which enables the optimal location to be chosen, for example, in terms of access to roads, rail transport, locations of the right area and neighborhood. Spatial analysis tools will also enable the coal company to verify its already existing distribution network.

In order to prepare a coal company for the development of future events, it is important to predict how can evolve the key environmental factors. This article presents the most important factors influencing the hard coal demand in Poland. They have been used as explanatory variables during the creation of a mathematical model of coal sales. In order to build the coal sales forecast, the authors used the ARMAX model. Its validation was performed based on such accuracy measures as: RMSE, MAPE and Theil’s index. The conducted studies have allowed the statistically significant factors out of all factors taken into account to be identified. They also enabled the creation of the forecast of coal sales volume in Poland in the coming years. To maintain the predictability of the forecast, the mining company should continually control the macro environment. The proper demand forecast allows for the flexible and dynamic adjustment of production or stock levels to market changes. It also makes it possible to adapt the product range to the customer’s requirements and expectations, which, in turn, translates into increased sales, the release of funds, reduced operating costs and increased financial liquidity of the coal company. Creating a forecast is the first step in planning a hard coal mining strategy. Knowing the future needs, we are able to plan the necessary level of production factors in advance. The right strategy, tailored to the environment, will allow the company to eliminate unnecessary costs and to optimize employment. It will also help the company to fully use machines and equipment and production capacity. Thanks to these efforts, the company will be able to reduce production costs and increase operating profit, thus survive in a turbulent environment.

The article presents the possibility of using the Cobb-Douglas production function for planning in a turbulent environment. A case study was carried out – the Cobb-Douglas function was used to examine the condition of the Polish hard coal mining industry and the progress which has been made after undertaking certain activities aimed at increasing the competitiveness of coal companies over recent years. Only the correct and confirmed identification of the causes of irregularities in the production process can allow for the introduction of effective remedies. The effectiveness of the solutions proposed by the author has been confirmed thanks to the simulation during which the impact of the proposed production strategy on the parameters of the CD function was examined. Three variants of production functions models were created and production productivity rates and marginal substitution rates were determined. The results enabled the verification of the progress of restructuring as well as identification of the origin of the observed problems and comparison of the current state with the results of analyses carried out in previous years. Scenarios of possible trend developments for the factors introduced into the function model in order to present remedial measures that could improve the process of hard coal extraction were created. The scenarios were created using the ARIMA class models. Which scenario is the most favourable was determined. A computer program, created by the author, for optimising the level and use of labor resources at the level of the entire coal company has been presented.

The article presents a synthetic analysis of the crude oil market in Poland. As of today, this safety is provided mainly on the basis of native lignite and hard coal resources. However, the analysis of the hard coal market conducted by the authors indicates that the carried out mining restructuring (among others) led to an excessive reduction of mining volume and employment level in the hard coal mining sector. This led to a precedent situation when Poland became an importer of this energy carrier. In addition, the European Union’s requirements for greenhouse gas emissions must be taken into account. In connection with the above, it is necessary to search for new energy sources or technologies that enable hard coal to meet the requirements. It is possible to apply the so-called clean coal technologies that allow the greenhouse gas emissions generated during coal combustion to be reduced. As of today, they are not used on a mass scale, because the use of this type of technology involves additional financial expenses. However, taking into account that technologies have been growing faster and faster, are modernized in a shorter time, making a breakthrough discovery took hundreds of years, now it is often a few months, clean coal technologies can become the optimal solution in the near future. It is also necessary to diversify the sources of obtaining imported energy carriers.

The article describes coal and crude oil in terms of their mutual substitution. The article is a continuation of research conducted by the authors. Previous publications presented considerations on analogous topics related to natural gas and renewable energy sources. The crude oil market in Poland was analyzed and forecasts for oil extraction and the demand in the world and Poland by 2023 were presented. The SARIMA model was also created. The model made it possible to obtain oil an prices forecast.

This article presents the results of research on the importance of access to critical raw materials for the development of wind energy in Poland. The authors have built a set of factors that can potentially influence this development. Twenty-four explanatory variables were taken into account, which were assigned to five categories. The amount of demand for mineral resources related to the development of wind technology was determined using a computer programwritten by the authors. The importance of individual factors was verified using the ARMAX model. As a result of this, it was possible to identify the explanatory variables that significantly affect the volume of wind energy production in Poland. The group of mineral resources includes critical metals that are necessary for the production of wind turbines. These are rare earth elements, copper, nickel, boron and manganese. The ARMAX model enables the examination of the relationship between the explained variable and the explanatory variables. Optimization of the model parameters was performed by limiting the mean square error. During the validation of the model, the VIF (variance inflation factor), Dickey-Fuller and Doornik-Hansen tests were used. The ARMAX validation also consisted of selecting the model characterized by the lowest value of information criteria and determining ex post errors, including the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). In addition, the nature of individual independent variables was determined, i.e. whether they were stimulants, nominants, or destimulants. The forecast made it possible to verify the possibility of meeting the assumptions of the Polish Energy Policy until 2040. It showed that if the development trends of the factors that affect wind energy do not change, it would be possible to meet the assumptions of PEP2040 regarding the dynamic development of wind farms in Poland and double the generation capacity by 2030. Analysis using the ARMAX model showed that access to raw materials such as REE, Cu, Ni, Br and Mn would have a very significant impact on the development of wind energy in Poland. Each factor of the raw material category that was introduced into the model was considered statistically significant at the significance level of α = 0.01, i.e. at the lowest acceptable risk of error. Therefore, the raw material base would be of key importance to ensure access to wind energy at the level adopted in PEP2040.

This article presents research on the structure of energy mixes and the dependence on imports of the EU-27 member states, with a particular emphasis on Poland. During the conducted research, a spatial information system was used. GIS tools made it possible to build layers presenting information based on the countries’ energy mix, the level of dependence on the import of this fuel, and the share of the Russian Federation in fuel imports. It was also examined whether the level of dependence on imports from Russia was dependent on the geographical location. Since it has been shown that the share of Russian fuel is significant in the energy mixes of many member states, and that security does not depend solely on import dependence, an energy security assessment measure has been created (SES). As the level of security consists of many factors, assessing each of them separately is very difficult and unclear. Therefore, in order to simplify this analysis, it was necessary to determine one indicator that would take into account all the factors influencing the level of energy security. Poland is privileged in terms of access to fossil fuels due to its rich coal deposits; however, the potential of this fuel is not used, which is also indicated by the level of the SES measure. In the case of Poland, SES amounts to less than 16% and is almost three times lower than the EU-27 average. The indicator made it possible to indicate not only those factors that positively affect the level of energy security but also those that adversely affect it. It also enabled the identification of possible remedial measures.