What goes on in Poland on the 10th of July.
Kwieciński: Poland is more resistant to the crisis than others. Gas sales results confirm this
– Poland, thanks to diversification of the economy and government support in the form of anti-crisis shields, is undergoing the current crisis relatively mildly compared to other European countries. This can also be seen in the results of our company and the amount of gas sold in the first half of this year – said PGNiG president Jerzy Kwieciński during a meeting with journalists.
In the first half of the year, PGNiG increased gas sales by one percent compared to the first half of 2019. In the first quarter of 2020 it was seven percent more than in the first quarter of 2019. – The second quarter was more difficult, but not as much as we expected earlier – said PGNiG CEO Jerzy Kwieciński.
Kwieciński added that this is a very good result compared to other European countries – at the same time, gas demand fell by five percent, while in France the drop was 12 percent year-on-year.
The development of biomethane may require up to PLN 70 billion
PGNiG wants to focus on renewable energy areas in its strategy, which update will be available this fall. These issues are to be related to biogas and biomethane.
Jerzy Kwieciński said that the development of biomethane will be PGNiG’s goal for the coming years. – We currently have about 300 biogas plants in Poland. These are mainly agricultural biogas plants. In our biomethane program, we want to use biomethane production that would be injected into the distribution network. The potential of biogas in Poland is 13-14 billion cubic meters, half of which is biomethane. PGNiG’s goal is to develop four billion cubic meters in the next 10 years. This is more or less the same as what we extract during our year from our deposits in the volume of 3,8 billion cubic meters. We assume that biogas will constitute 10 percent of our distribution system, and in 20-30 years it may even be 20 percent. This is analogous to the situation in the liquid fuels sector, where we add ethanol or esters to gasoline – he pointed out.