Polish Storage Facilities Full: PGNiG

State-controlled Polish Oil & Gas Company (PGNiG) has completely filled the countries' underground gas storage facilities, it said October 14. Normally, with unbundling under European Union competition law, it is the storage operator that makes such announcements.

“During the spring and summer, when the consumption of natural gas in the country is lower, we inject significant volumes of natural gas into storage to make it available in autumn and winter. Gas reserves are used not only in connection with lower temperatures and the associated increase in gas consumption. They are also a guarantee of stability of gas fuel supply,” said CEO Piotr Wozniak.

In July 2019, the average daily consumption in Poland was about 30mn m³ while in the previous February it was on average twice that. There are now about 3bn m³ of gas in store as of October 14, while the country also has contracts to buy LNG with US and Qatar that can further boost supply.

In most of Europe, storage is available commercially to all shippers. The fact that all the gas in store has been injected by PGNiG is therefore unusual. The European Commission has in the past found fault with the Polish gas market, including the treatment of storage, and warned the government of possible violations of competition law in March last year.