Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of State Assets Jacek Sasin said that Polish gas storage facilities are full. „If we only had to use this gas, these stocks would provide enough gas for a month and a half”, said Minister Sasin. At the same time, he assured Poles that any possible restrictions in use would not affect households.

“At the moment I do not expect that by the end of the year, or in fact until the fourth quarter, when the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline is launched, we would have to limit gas supplies to customers. Even if such a situation occurred (…), it would not affect households”, said Sasin.

The Minister of State Assets stated that so far approximately 45% of gas consumed in Poland was Russian gas, and 55% of that fuel is from other sources. This includes domestic production, a gas terminal in Świnoujście and a new connection with Lithuania.

“We can certainly receive such amount consumed by households from the other sources. If any restrictions were necessary, they would affect the industry. We also have an appropriate plan prepared for such a situation. The Polish government expected the supply of Russian gas to be suspended and wanted to abandon this gas from the end of the year. Gazprom’s decision slightly accelerated this process”, added the minister.

Sasin stated that the planned full capacity of the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline, providing gas from Norway, is 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The pipeline will be delivered on time, but its full capacity will not be available until next year.

The Baltic Pipe gas pipeline is to create a new route of natural gas supplies from Norway to the Danish and Polish markets and to end-users in neighbouring countries. The gas pipeline will be able to send 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually to Poland and 3 billion cubic meters from Poland to Denmark. The investors are transmission operators: Danish Energinet and Polish Gaz-System. According to plans, it will start operating on October 1.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński