Poland: How to Connect with Europe

Poland’s dominant gas company PGNiG, is reportedly interested in assuming control over a project to construct a gas pipeline near the city of Szczecin to Bernau, which would join the Polish and the German gas transit systems.

The pipeline is a joint venture of E.ON Ruhrgas AG and privately held Bartimpex of Poland.

PGNiG wants to buy stakes in the Bartimpex, stake in the project by the end of the year said PGNiG vice president Marek Karabuła. Bartimpex has a permit for construction, which is valid for a limited period of time. Therefore according to Karabuła the talks cannot drag on forever.

If PGNiG completes the takeover of the Bartimpex interest, it would likely integrate the project with its own planned Polish-German inter-connector through InterTransGas GmbH, a project with German VNG Group.

InterTransGas project is a two-way gas pipeline from Boernicke in Germany to Police in Poland.

PGNiG has denied plans to connect Poland with the Russian-German Nord Stream gas pipeline, saying that it would rather integrate the Polish gas system with the European network via the InterTransGas project, allowing Poland access to new gas sources and enable gas sales to other EU countries.

The connector would allow Poland to will secure additional gas sources, increasing the nation's energy security as well as enabling PGNiG to sell gas to other European countries.

InterTransGas project is one of several investment projects involving the construction of inter-connections currently underway in Poland including increasing the throughput of the existing (two-way) Lasów interconnector with Germany, construction of a new (two-way) inter-connection with the Czech Republic, and construction of the LNG terminal in Świnoujście.