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Polish Briefing 15 March, 2018 9:00 am   
COMMENTS: Mateusz Gibała

Polish Briefing: The PGNiG-Gazprom deal is getting more expensive. MEPs criticize Nord Stream 2

What goes on in Poland on the 15th of March.

The contract of PGNiG-Gazprom is getting more expensive

On March 14, the result conference for the fourth quarter of 2017 and the entire last year was held at the Warsaw headquarters of the PGNiG Group. PGNiG admits that with the price of oil, the contract with Gazprom is getting more expensive.

Oil rose from 44 to 54 USD a barrel, or 23 percent on average. Interestingly, oil production fell due to a breakdown in the Skarv field, which caused a 5 percent drop in 2017.

– The same factors have negatively affected the segment’s results and storage – said Michał Pietrzyk, vice president for finance at PGNiG. The oil price increase on average from USD 44 to USD 50,2 per barrel caused an increase in the cost of the contract with Gazprom. However, revenues from gas distribution increased by 7 percent.

– The fourth quarter of 2017 was not the best. We have an increase in gas sales by 8 percent, but a significant increase in operating costs by 13 percent, which results from the increase in the cost of the contract signed with Gazprom – admitted Pietrzyk.

MEPs once again criticize the Nord Stream 2 in a letter

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is a political instrument in the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who considers the EU an enemy and seeks to divide it; we should not allow it – the MEPs appeal in an article published on Wednesday in “FAZ”.

Among the signatories of the text, representatives of the Christian Democratic European People’s Party predominate, but there are also two members of the Social Democrats (S&D), the head of the Green Group in the EP Rebecca Harms and the Liberal MP (ALDE). In addition to two Polish MEPs from PO – Julia Pitera and Dariusz Rosati – there are two MEPs from Germany and Lithuania, as well as one from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Contrary to often raised arguments, the possible launch of Nord Stream 2 will not lead to a greater diversification of gas supplies to Europe, because Russia would still be a supplier – wrote the authors, pointing out that the question should be asked “whether and to what extent the other suppliers’ economic interests are combined” .

“We must not forget that this is a third country investment in the strategic infrastructure of the European Union, and therefore for a security project,” the MEPs indicate. They warn that one should not turn a blind eye to the fact that the Gazprom concern “is not an enterprise operating solely according to economic calculations”; it is also “a tool of Russia’s foreign policy, which is becoming more and more authoritarian, and for its purposes revisionist (…)”.