On April 23, 2026, the General Meeting of the Association was held at the Piast Crown Hotel in Krakow.
In the first part, the activities in 2025 were summarized. The Secretary presented substantive and financial reports, the Audit Committee presented a resolution positively evaluating the submitted reports, and after a short discussion, the attendees adopted the appropriate resolutions positively reviewing the activities in 2025 and granting discharge to the members of the Board.
In the second part of the Meeting, the following matters were discussed:
- PRE Congress 2026 in Helsinki
- Participation of Polish companies in the PRE competition regarding work safety.
- Preparation for organizing the PRE Congress 2027 in Poland.
- Information on the main points discussed during the March meeting of the PRE Executive Committee.
- Status of work on the anti-dumping proceedings concerning refractory materials imported from China.
- Changes in the PRE budget.
- Appointment of the PRE communication team.
- CORNET – Information on the progress of work within the project ViscoTherm: “Improving the thermal shock resistance of refractory materials through controlled liquid phase formation” and the planned 2nd meeting in Poland of project implementers with users.
President T. Biliński reminded about the PRE Congress, which will be held in Helsinki on June 10–12 this year, and referred to the ongoing evaluation of applications submitted to the PRE competition concerning occupational safety, the results of which will be presented at the Congress. 32 applications were submitted, including two from Vesuvius Skawina sp. z o.o. He then discussed the preliminary preparations and program of the PRE Congress in 2027, which is expected to be organized in Kraków on June 9–11.
Vice President M. Cyganik, who participated in the March meeting of the PRE Executive Committee as a substitute for the President, presented a report from that meeting. One of the main topics was CBAM and the regulations adopted in this regard. The status of work on CER – BREF and the agreements adopted at the February meeting of the EC Working Group were also discussed.
President T. Biliński presented the progress of the Task Force on Anti-Dumping at PRE regarding the initiation of anti-dumping proceedings for products imported from China and informed about the amendments introduced in the PRE Statute and the new rules for calculating membership fees. The President of SPMO also informed about the establishment by PRE of the Communication Working Group and presented its composition, which includes a representative of SPMO from AcelorMittal Refractories.
Jerzy Czechowski, leading the project on the Polish side, presented extensive information regarding the progress of the project “ViscoTherm: Improving the Thermal Shock Resistance of Refractory Materials through Controlled Liquid Phase Formation”, which was approved within the framework of the 38th CORNET competition, and SPMO received its funding from the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR). According to the assumptions, the final reports of the project will identify and define the method of controlling the formation of the liquid phase in the microstructure of the products in order to improve thermal shock resistance without significantly risking the deterioration of high-temperature properties. Research is being carried out by teams at ICIMB as well as HS Koblenz and FGF. The project began on September 1, 2025, and in October, the project kick-off meeting took place in Germany. The head of the Institute team submits quarterly reports on research progress to SPMO. Advances are settled by NCBIR and ICIMB in accordance with the implementation of tasks and the schedule approved by NCBIR. The next meeting of research implementers with the industry users committee will take place in Gliwice on May 27, 2026. The start is at 10:00 AM. The invitation prepared by the coordinator of the entire project, Erwan Brochen from FGF, along with the meeting program, was sent to the companies.
In the final part of the Meeting, Piotr Kuszela from the Entrepreneurship Development Agency (ARP) presented a lecture titled “Financing tailored to the needs of your business”, after which a discussion took place regarding the forms and possibilities of obtaining financial assistance from ARP.