Poland to hike tariff on Russian gas transit
The Polish government plans to revise the conditions pertaining to the transit of Russian gas through the country after the current contract expires, Polish Secretary of State for Strategic Energy Infrastructure Piotr Naimski told the press.
According to the official, 29 billion cubic meters of Russian gas are pumped through Poland every year, but the tariffs are so low that the country only receives 21 million zloty (around $5.4 million) in revenue from it.
“It’s just business. We will try to ensure that it isn’t done for free, as it is now. 21 million zloty per year for these billions [of cubic meters] pumped along 660 km is nothing,” Naimski remarked.
The current contract regarding the Polish stretch of the Yamal – Europe Pipeline will expire in spring 2020. In 2018, Naimski estimated that Poland had lost $400 million from the transit contract with Gazprom between 2010 and 2017. The losses from buying gas from Gazprom between 2001 and 2018 were an estimated 50-100 billion zloty ($12.7-$25.5 billion).
Poland suffered the losses because the gas supply from the Russian monopoly was more expensive than from European suppliers, Naimski noted in April 2019.
Poland’s contract to purchase Russian gas expires in 2022. Naimski has already made it clear that Poland will not extend the contract.
Poland is one of the largest buyers of Russian gas in Eastern and Central Europe. In 2018, Gazprom supplied the country with 9.86 billion cubic meters of gas, roughly a quarter of the entire volume supplied to the region, and 4.91% of Gazprom’s total exports.