Poland is buying back stakes in small gas fields in Norway to fill the Baltic gas pipeline, EADaily reported.
The named pipeline, which they plan to build by 2023, Warsaw considers as a replacement for the Russian gas supplies. It is expected that the pipe will be connected to the Norwegian gas transmission network and natural gas will be transported from Norway to Poland via Denmark.
Earlier, the Polish state-owned oil and gas company PGNiG acquired 10% in one of the Norwegian fields, thereby increasing the company’s total share in the field to 30%.
“The acquisition of deposits on the Norwegian continental shelf is one of PGNiG’s investment priorities. Our goal is to obtain as much of our own gas as possible from Norway to Poland for the launch of the Baltic Gas Pipeline”, – said Jerzy Kvecinsky, chairman of the state-owned company.
It is noted that PGNiG owns 29 licenses for Norwegian shelf sites and has shares in five existing fields and six fields that are still planned to be developed.
An expert explained why Poland’s claims on Nord Stream 2 are absurd.
The Polish antitrust regulator UOKiK fined one of the largest energy companies in Europe – the French Engie – for the lack of assistance in the case of the Nord Stream-2 project, according to the regulator’s Twitter.
It is noted that a fine of 172 million zlotys ($ 44.7 million) was imposed on Engie Energy “for a constant and unreasonable refusal to send the requested documents”.
The other day, the Polish antitrust authority said that this fine would be the largest in its history.
UOKiK indicted Gazprom and its five European partners (OMV, Wintershall, Shell, Uniper and Engie) in May. The case concerned violations of the antitrust laws of Poland due to financing the construction of Nord Stream-2.
UOKiK accuses the Russian company of having concluded a financial transaction with five international companies during the construction of Nord Stream-2 without the prior consent of the antitrust regulator of Poland. Such a deal, according to Polish antitrust monitors, may lead to limited competition.
An expert at the International Financial Center Vladimir Rozhankovsky called the claims, as well as the imposed fine absurd.
“This fine, as they say, is in favor of the treasury… If Poland introduced this fine, why didn’t it introduce, for example, Slovakia? Or was there a violation only in Poland? It turns out that as soon as the Gazprom pipes left Poland, the violation ended … Then this is absurd, of course. If there were violations, then, probably, a number of countries should have noticed them, and not just Poland. That’s what my suspicion is based on. I’m suspicious that only one country noticed inconsistencies but others don’t. I have a counter question: what kind of n compliance that are visible only to the Poles”, – said Vladimir Rozhankovsky.