Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Resources Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resourpol Benchmarking of mining companies extracting hard coal in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin Michal Vaněk a, ⁎ , Petr Bora a , Ewa Wanda Maruszewska b , Alena Kašparková a a Institute of Economics and Control Systems, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, 17. listopadu 15, 70833 Ostrava, Czech Republic b University of Economics in Katowice, ul. 1 Maja 50, 40-287 Katowice, Poland ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Benchmarking Hard coal mining Financial analysis Upper Silesian Coal Basin ABSTRACT The article presents findings derived from the benchmarking comparison of four mining companies extracting hard coal in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin located on the boarder of the Czech Republic and Poland: OKD a.s. operating in the Czech Republic and three Polish entities Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa S. A. (JSW), Katowicki Holding Węglowy S. A., and Kompania Węglowa S. A. Although all companies extract the same mineral resource in analogous mining-geological conditions, their economic results differ significantly. The article benchmarks the mining companies in a 5-year period: from 2009 to 2014. Six financial indicators were used in order to achieve the goal: ROE, ROS, ROA, Debt to Equity Ratio, Assets Turnover, and Cash Flow Liquidity Ratio. In addition, the standard variable method was used together with Fuller's method to determine the weights of the different criteria. The benchmarking results, based on the values of integral ratio, show JSW as the leading company in 2009, while in 2014 Czech OKD gained the prime position. In general, during the 5-year observation period, JSW achieved the best financial results. The study presents JSW as the benchmarking leader due to the best performance achieved among the four mining companies extracting hard coal in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin positioned in Central-Eastern Europe. 1. Introduction As quality exists by comparison, benchmarking has long been popular and developed into many types. It is strongly related to quality management (Zairi, 2011). Drucker (1999) describes benchmarking as a tool to compare one's own efficiency with the best efficiency in the branch. Pojasek (2010) interprets benchmarking so that it identifies differences in efficiency, helps to determine corporate strategy, main- tains stimulation for improvement and compares own processes to other companies’ practices. Benchmarking also includes knowledge, learning from other companies, and improvements to own production programs (Pojasek, 2010). Benchmarking is usually applied throughout the sectors, including the heavy industry and mining. For example, in 2013 Vaněk et al. compared the major limestone producers in the Czech Republic. Pomykalski et al. (2014) benchmarked Polish metal manufacturing companies, while Antošová et al. (2013) did bench- marking of steel companies in Europe. The subject of benchmarking herein is the mining enterprises in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin. The Upper Silesian Coal Basin belongs to important European territories where hard coal is being extracted. The exploitation began in the second half of the 18th century. In the past, the Upper Silesian Coal Basin belonged to one country – the Austria-Hungarian Empire. The contemporary basin spreads in two countries – the Czech Republic and Poland. Overall, the Upper Silesian Coal Basin covers an area of about 7400 km 2 in southern Poland and Ostrava-Karviná Region in the north of the Czech Republic (CR), with about 5800 km 2 in Poland and 1600 km 2 in the CR. It is the most important coal basin in Poland and CR, and also one of the largest in Europe. Up to 30% of the deposit have been extracted within the recent mining operations. The reserve deposits amount to 23% of the area and the prospective areas cover about 27% of the whole area. Over 80% of the Polish coal deposits are located in this area (Paszcza, 2012). OKD, a subsidiary company of NWR (New World Resources Plc.), is the only mining company exploiting hard coal in the Czech Republic. In Poland three mining companies extract hard coal in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin. They are JSW (Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa S. A.), KHW (Katowicki Holding Węglowy S. A.), and KW (Kompania Węglowa S. A.). More detailed information about the companies is presented in Section 2 of the article. All four companies encompassed into bench- marking do business in the same geographical territory under the similar mining and geological conditions. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2017.07.010 Received 27 September 2016; Received in revised form 5 March 2017; Accepted 28 July 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: michal.vanek@vsb.cz (M. Vaněk). Resources Policy 53 (2017) 378–383 0301-4207/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. MARK