Poland will not renew its contract with Gazprom
Poland has no plans to renew its long-term contract with the Russian Federation for the supply of gas, which expires in 2022. Reuters cites the Commissioner of the Government of Poland on Issues of Gas and Energy Infrastructure, Piotr Naimski.
According to Naimski, in order to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, Poland constructed the first terminal for transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) and also plans to construct the pipeline in the North Sea.
“We will strive for a situation where a long-term contract becomes a thing of the past. If the price of Russian gas is quite competitive, we won’t rule out buying it but it definitely would not be under a long-term contract,” Reuters quotes him as saying. Naimski stressed that the new LNG terminal will allow Poland to import up to 5 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
"Now, a single long-term contract with Qatargas for the supply of 1.5 billion cubic meters every year to PGNiG [the state gas company of Poland] is agreed for the terminal,” he said.
PGNiG plans to build a pipeline to transport gas from Norway to Poland to reduce gas dependency on Russia and will present details of their plan this year. The pipeline will be finished by 2022. Its planned capacity is 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
PGNiG buys up to 10.2 billion cubic meters of Russian gas per year from the Russian gas company Gazprom. They account for the major volume of Poland’s annual consumption, amounting to almost 15 billion cubic meters. The contract, signed in 1996, expires in 2022.