2019-04-24 14:24 update: 2019-04-28, 16:08
Andrzej Duda. Photo PAP/Marcin Bielecki
Poland will soon be fully sovereign in terms of gas supplies and will also be able to offer security in this respect to its neighbours, President Andrzej Duda said in the north-western city of Świnoujście on Wednesday.
President Duda and PM Mateusz Morawiecki on Wednesday attended a ceremony of signing a subsidy agreement to expand the functionality of Poland's landmark LNG terminal in Świnoujście.
Duda recalled a 2006 meeting of the National Security Council, when Poland's late President Lech Kaczyński presented his idea for the country's gas supplies independence.
"Today all those plans of President Lech Kaczyński have been or are being implemented. Today we standing in an LNG terminal that bears his name," Duda said, adding that the terminal's expansion will increase the facility's capacity to 7.5 bln cubic metres of gas from today's 5 bln.
Ultimately, the capacity will be increased even further, to 10 bln cubic metres, he added.
Duda also said Poland is at an advanced stage in preparations to the construction of the Baltic Pipe, a pipeline that is designed to supply gas from the Norwegian shelf deposits to Poland.
"This means that Poland will not only be totally independent in terms of gas supplies, but will soon be able to offer security in this respect to its neighbours," the president declared, quoting such neighbouring countries as the Czech Republic and Ukraine.
PM Morawiecki said the Baltic Pipe pipeline will be constructed according to plan.
Poland is trying to expand "its infrastructure of the broadly-understood energy security," the prime minister said, also stressing potential benefits for Poland's neighbours.
"Security, sovereignty and efficiency are the three basic goals of our energy policy," Morawiecki went on to say.
"Today this terminal together with the Baltic pipeline (...) - which will be constructed over the next few years - create a new energy security architecture, a new architecture in this part of Europe," Morawiecki said.
The owner of the Świnoujście terminal is Polskie LNG, a sister company of gas transmission operator Gaz-System. The facility received the first commercial delivery of liquefied natural gas in June 2016. (PAP)
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