Poland - Russia Gas Contract Ruling Due early 2020

The arbitration court in Stockholm will issue its decision on the Poland-Russia Yamal gas supply contract in February or March next year, the state-owned gas monopoly PGNiG said December 13. At stake are the terms on which Gazprom supplies the gas and the procedure for changing the price, and PGNiG expects to emerge victorious.

In June 2018, the arbitration court issued a partial ruling where it declared that the conditions for PGNiG to be entitled to demand that Gazprom changes the price calculation method have been satisfied.

“Based on the court’s partial ruling and the course of the evidentiary proceedings, we can assume that the final ruling will be favourable to PGNiG. Now we just need to wait easily for two or three months,” said CEO Piotr Wozniak.

The dispute between PGNiG and Gazprom concerns the price calculation procedure for gas supplied under the Yamal contract. Because of the price formula in force, the price paid by PGNiG is much above the market rate. For this reason, in 2014 PGNiG used the price renegotiation option provided for in the contract. After the negotiation period expired in May 2015, the Polish company submitted the dispute for resolution by the arbitration court in Stockholm, and did not effectively bring claims against Gazprom until February 2016.

The court will give the actual date of the announcement at the start of February.