This will now increase the country's reliant on US LNG (which at this time many US Gulf Coast LNG projects still have to be sanctioned and not guaranteed to come online) and the long awaited Baltic pipeline to take Norwegian gas to Poland.
The move is not a big surprise and is completely consistent with all the messages the Poland has been giving over the past few years including aggressively signing up US LNG volumes.
Poland consumes around 17 bcm of gas annually, more than half of which comes from Gazprom under a long-term contract that expires at the end of 2022. It has used the upcoming expiry as an opportunity to diversify its gas supply ahead of time and has consistently stressed that Gazprom is charging Poland too much for the gas noting that Russia has taken advantage of the historic lack of other sources of gas which is now rapidly changing with the advent of LNG.
Related links:
- Nov 2018: PGNiG shuns Russian gas
- Nov 2018: PGNiG expands footprint in Norway
- Jun 2019: PGNiG acquires Total's 22.2% stake in King Lear
- Jun 2019: Tommeliten Alpha Project passes important decision gate towards production in 2024
