PGNiG confirms termination of Russian gas imports from end 2022

Poland's PGNiG has notified Gazprom of its intention to terminate imports of Russian pipeline gas from the end of 2022.


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

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PGNiG acquires Total's 22.2% stake in King Lear

Total has sold its 22.2% stake in King Lear to PGNiG. This follows AkerBP's acquisition of Equinor's 77.8% stake in the field in October 2018 for USD250 million.

In October 2018, AkerBP noted that King Lear is one of the largest undeveloped discoveries in Norway and that it planned to develope the field as a satellite to Ula. Ula is operated by AkerBP (80% with DNO as 20% partner) and the tie-back will improve capacity utilisation at the Ula facilities. Importantly, King Lear will also provide signifcant gas volumes for injection into the Ula field for increased oil recovery. Net recoverable resources at King Lear is estimated at c.100mmboe and is gas weighted.

PGNiG notes that the development of the field is planned to commence in 2021 with first production in 2025.

The King Lear development has stalled since its initial discovery as it was originally expected to be part of the Greater Ekofisk Area project which would have seen King Leat, Tommeliten Alpha and Tor tie back to Ekofisk. However gas processing capacity constraints at Ekofisk meant the project was not sanctioned.

With PGNiG entry into King Lear, and also ownership of Tommeliten Alpha (acquired from Equinor in October 2018) could see the latter now being routed to King Lear.

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