Poland will have enough gas owing to Baltic Pipe, PM says

The Baltic Pipe gas pipeline, due to open on October 1, will be filled with as much gas as is needed to make Poland independent from Russia, Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, has said.

Baltic Pipe is a joint venture by Polish and Danish and gas operators Gaz-System and Energinet, and will link Norwegian gas fields to Poland and Denmark. In its initial phase the pipeline will carry 2-3 billion cubic meters of gas annually, and 10 billion cubic meters when fully operational.

Morawiecki said on Wednesday that "various commentators are trying to encourage us to make us fill the Baltic Pipe with gas as quickly as possible, and with as much as possible."

But, he added, "we will fill it to the extent that it will be necessary to ensure that there is enough gas in Poland."

According to Morawiecki the Baltic Pipe will give Poland independence from Russian gas.

"Filling this Baltic gas pipeline, which gives us full independence from Russian gas, will be what it has to be," he said.

He added that LNG supplies from Qatar and the US mean that there is no need for the pipeline to operate at maximum capacity.

"We have our own extraction, we have an LNG terminal with a capacity of approximately 7 billion cubic meters of gas per year, and we are building a new floating terminal, to be ready in a few years," he said.

Morawiecki added that Poland has also completed the construction of gas interconnectors with Lithuania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany.