Poland Expands Its Gas Import Capacity from Germany

Polish gas pipeline operator Gaz-System has offered a number of firms access to import capacity on its Lasow interconnector on the border with Germany.

The Polish company offered 500mn m³/yr of additional capacity from January 2012 as a result of expansion of the interconnector to 1.5bn m³/yr from 1bn m³/yr. The new capacity will be available by the end of this year.

In total, 27 firms will get access to new capacity, including France’s GDF Suez, Poland’s PGNiG and Germany’s RWE and VNG, as well as traders such as Vitol and Polenergia and large Polish consumers such as PKN Orlen, Anwil, ZA Pulawy and ZCH Police.

The Polish companies are interested in increasing imports from Germany as that would reduce the cost of supplying gas to buyers in western Poland.

Poland used all of its available German interconnector capacity in 2010, importing more than 1bn m³, just over 10pc of its total imports. Most of the gas imported from Germany in 2010 and 2011 was imported by PGNiG under its contract with VNG.

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Source: Argus, October 10, 2011