Energy Security as a Premise for Mergers and Acquisitions on the Example of the Multi-Energy Concern PKN Orlen in the Face of the Challenges of the 2020s

Abstract

A concern for ensuring energy security is particularly important in the 2020s, a decade significantly marked by economic and political uncertainty: the coronavirus pandemic, the Russian-Ukrainian war, and inflation turning into stagflation in many markets. Additionally, the national and international climate policy promoting the acquisition of energy from non-renewable sources is only a part of the problem that forces a revision of the direction and degree of diversification of energy sources. States, bearing in mind the inevitability of change, in order to maintain energy security, should not only accurately read these phenomena but also effectively prevent them. One of the available solutions is to build a multi-energy concern to ensure energy independence through diversified production and distribution of electricity and non-renewable fuels. To this end, a large international entity centred around the PKN Orlen group has existed in Poland for several years. The construction of this holding is based on M&A transactions, as effective mechanisms for long-term management, and focused around complementary, in terms of economic activity, market entities—Energa, Lotos and PGNiG. This article focuses on the assessment of the phenomenon of capital concentration in M&A transactions by PKN Orlen, with particular emphasis on the changes in the shaping of energy security in the near future and also on the basis of the directions resulting from government guidelines and policies.