Poland's dominant natural gas producer and distributor PGNiG is holding preliminary talks with US companies about taking equity stakes in LNG export facilities as a way to gain access to US LNG supplies, the Polish government's energy infrastructure adviser, Piotr Naimski said Monday.
"PGNiG is exploring such opportunities, we know that the company's management is holding exploratory talks with US companies. It's a matter of finding the right partner. PGNiG is considering such options and this is within the company's strategy of acquiring new gas sources," Naimski told reporters.
Naimski said PGNiG was thinking of partnering with a medium- or even small-scale US shale gas producer.
"Each of them has its own gas and is trying to sell this gas. They also think about having shares in terminals or sometimes building their own, small capacity terminal. These are undertakings whose scale is acceptable to our potential investors," he said.
PGNiG wants to increase its LNG imports to diversify away from its dependence on Russian gas. Its long-term supply contract with Gazprom is due to expire in 2022 and PGNiG is not planning to extend it.
PGNiG has a long-term LNG supply contract with Qatargas as well as a five-year deal with Centrica for US LNG supplies.
Separately, Naimski said the 10 Bcm/year "Baltic Pipe" project -- Poland's other key project to diversify away from Russian gas -- which would connect the Polish, Danish and Norwegian gas networks, was proceeding on schedule, with a two-year construction timeline slated to begin in the spring of 2020.
"We are happy with the cooperation with our Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and German partners. We have all the permissions," he said. "There is no threat to the construction schedule of this pipeline," he added. Naimski said a decision on the pipeline route would be taken this month, allowing for design work to begin.
In January, PGNiG signed a 15-year agreement for capacity worth Zloty 8.1 billion ($2.2 billion) in the planned pipeline between October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2037 with the Polish, Danish and Norwegian gas transmission system operators.
Baltic Pipe would include the construction of a 120-km (74-mile) offshore pipeline between Norway's Europipe II North Sea pipeline and a receiving terminal near Varde in Denmark, a 220-km pipeline between Egtved in Jutland and the southeastern part of Zealand, where a 15-20-hectare compressor station would be built to connect to a 230-km offshore pipeline to Niechorze in Poland.
