At an event organised by Zdzislaw Krasnodebski MEP (ECR, Poland) in the European Parliament on Tuesday 18 October, Polish Secretary of State with responsibility for strategic energy infrastructure Piotr Naimski promoted plans for a northern gas gateway that would see the expansion of the Swinoujscie liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal and construction of a pipeline linking Poland with Norway through Denmark that would also supply Central and Eastern Europe.
“Poland has a strategy for connecting its gas market with independent supply sources”, Naimski told the press.
Poland wants to increase the capacity of the Swinoujscie LNG terminal from the current 5 billion cubic metres per year to 7.5 billion and then on to 10 billion cubic metres per year. It also wants to import natural gas from the Norwegian continental shelf by means of a pipeline linking Norway and Poland and a pipeline from Denmark to Poland under the Baltic Sea – the Baltic Pipe, a project of common interest (PCI) that would have a capacity of 10 billion cubic metres per year.
“Two independent sources from the North can supply us with 20 billion cubic metres of gas per year”, said Naimski, indicating that the project could help meet gas demand in Central and Eastern Europe, which is estimated at 40 billion cubic metres annually, or 70 billion cubic metres if Ukraine is included. The strategy also includes gas interconnections between Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine, he stated, indicating that he hoped it would be operational by 2022.
“I assure you that this project is based on economic calculations. It takes tariffs and transport costs into account and is competitive. It’s not a political project”, stressed Naimski, unhappy at what he sees as an attempt by the German-Russian Nord-Stream-2 gas pipeline project “to maintain the domination of one single supplier in Central and Eastern Europe”. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)