Poland could increase gas supplies to Ukraine three fold
Poland can increase gas supplies to Ukraine three fold. This can happenen if the planned expansion of the gas pipelines with Ukraine takes place by the end of 2019. This will allow to increase transportation volumes of natural gas from the current 1.5 billion cubic meters to 5-6 billion cubic meters. Ukrinform reports, citing Piotr Naimsky, the Government Commissioner on Strategic Energy Infrastructure Issues of Poland.
“There is a project on Polish-Ukrainian communications development. Currently, we have the capacity to transport 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas to Ukraine and if we build communications from the Ukrainian side and include this 120 km shortcut connecting the Polish system with a big gas storage facility in Ukraine, then we will be able to transport 5-6 billion cubic meters of gas,” Naimsky noted.
According to him, this will allow direct contact between consumers in Ukraine and suppliers of liquefied gas in Świnoujście, a gas port at the coast of the Baltic Sea in the north-western part of Poland. Naimsky stressed that, in fact, it may mean physical transport of liquefied gas to Ukraine and other countries of Central Europe, particularly from the east coast of the USA.
“We think of Ukraine first of all as it seems that the gas market in Ukraine is the biggest in the region. Moreover, not only in terms of economy but also from the political point of view, we may expect that Ukrainian consumers will want access to gas supplies other than Russia,” Naimsky stressed.
He did not exclude external partners—such as European or world financial institutions—from taking part in the development of gas communications between Ukraine and Poland.