Polish Market to Forfeit 5 Years Progress: Efet
Polish legal changes will damage the country’s gas wholesale market, the European Federation of Energy Traders (Efet), an industry association, wrote in a letter sent last week to Polish and EU authorities.
Efet says that “inefficient and counterproductive” Polish storage obligations will be compounded by recent changes to the law on strategic reserves to reinforce those obligations. It said they will lead to higher costs both at the wholesale and consumer level.
Doug Wood, chair of Efet’s gas committee, said that amendments to the law fail to answer basic issues such as: how storage held in neighbouring countries can be used to meet Polish security of supply obligations; and how transit gas is to be distinguished from gas intended for Polish gas users.
Efet called on Poland’s energy ministry to respond on both points, and whether grandfathering of all existing exemptions will be kept until their natural conclusion.
It also called on Polish gas grid Gaz-System and other relevant parties to suspend yearly auctions, originally scheduled for March 6, at interconnection points with Poland: “We insist that network users should have at least one-month time to prepare for the relevant postponed auctions, provided the legal and regulatory framework issues are clarified.” NGW asked Efet to confirm if the auctions have indeed now been postponed.
Efet secretary-general Jan van Aken (Photo credit: Efet)
“In the worst-case scenario, the Polish natural gas market will offset all the progress made since 2012 - when the number of market participants started to increase – and reinforce the dominance of national incumbent [PGNiG],” wrote Efet secretary-general Jan van Aken March 3 to five officials.
The letter was sent to Polish energy undersecretary Michal Kurtyka, energy regulator Maciej Bando, Gaz-System president Tomasz Stepien, European Commission internal energy market director Klaus-Dieter Borchardt, and Alberto Pototschnig, head of the EU’s Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (Acer).
Mark Smedley