Polish Oil and Gas Company, PGNiG and Equinor Group have concluded gas sales agreements to supply natural gas from the Norwegian Continental Shelf for a total volume of 2.4 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year, for 10 years. Gas purchased from Equinor will be delivered to Poland via the Baltic Pipe pipeline, a joint project of Polish GAZ-SYSTEM and Danish Energinet, that will commence operation on 1 October 2022. Starting from 2023 it will enable transportation of around 10 bcm per year of which PGNiG has reserved approximately eight.
“Equinor is a strategic business partner for the PGNiG Group playing a crucial role in our efforts to diversify gas supplies to Poland,” saidIwona Waksmundzka-Olejniczak, President of the management board of PGNiG. “The contracts we have just signed provide for gas that will be delivered to Poland using the Baltic Pipe pipeline, resulting in a significant strengthening of energy security of our country.”
“I am glad that a company of such standing and reputation as Equinor, with which PGNiG already cooperates on exploration and production activities on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, becomes a gas supplier for our Group,” she added. “This is a major step towards further development of cooperation between our companies in the future.”
“Equinor is a broad energy provider and has been a key supplier of gas to Europe for 45 years,” commented Irene Rummelhoff, Equinor’s Executive Vice President of Marketing, Midstream and Processing. “I am very happy that through this gas sales agreement we can extend our offering as a reliable energy partner also to Poland. Equinor is also working with local companies on developing large-scale offshore wind and solar projects in Poland, and we look forward to further developing our energy cooperation with PGNiG and Poland in the time to come.”
According to PGNiG’s strategy, the primary source of gas to be delivered via the Baltic Pipe will be PGNiG’s own production on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, which is expected to reach 3 bcm this year and could rise to 4 bcm per year by 2027. To optimally utilise the remainder of the reserved capacity, PGNiG has already signed several contracts with suppliers operating on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The contracts concluded with the Equinor Group are so far the largest in terms of volume.
