Piotr Naimski, the government plenipotentiary for strategic energy infrastructure, announced that the construction of the Baltic Pipe pipeline is being carried out according to the schedule, and the gas transmission pipe will be launched in October.

The Baltic Pipe is to be one of the key elements of Polish energy independence. It will enable Poland to purchase gas from the Norwegian Shelf and to abandon supplies from Russia. A gas pipeline consisting of several sections laid at the bottom of the Baltic Sea and through the territory of Denmark will be put into service in autumn 2022.

Naimski said that Poland suffered, like all countries in Europe, from gas price manipulations that also translate into the prices of coal and electricity. “This crisis has political origins and it is a Russian manipulation”, stressed the government plenipotentiary.

He added that Poland is immune to Putin’s energy blackmail because it has almost intact gas storage. It happened thanks to the foresight of the Polish Oil and Gas Industry and to the mild temperature this winter. Poland is not exposed to this blackmail to the same extent as some countries in Western Europe.

In Naimski’s opinion, factors fueling the increase in prices are inflation and the crisis caused by the pandemic, but the direct influence of Gazprom was extremely important, as it stopped sending gas to Western Europe and caused price growths on the stock exchanges. “This is a political tool that the Russians used once again to achieve precisely their political goals”.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński