Gazprom's natural gas pricing policy towards Poland is clearly discriminatory, Poland's Treasury Minister Mikolaj Budzanowski said Wednesday.
"We are in the European Union and we should be treated like the Germans, French and Dutch gas offtakers," Budzanowski said in an interview on Polish public radio.
Under its 1996 long-term contract with Gazprom, Poland's dominant natural gas producer and distributor PGNiG is locked into paying for Russian gas imports at expensive oil-indexed prices. PGNiG resells that gas at regulated prices to Polish consumers.
According to the Russian business daily Vedomosti, Poland paid on average $420/1,000 cubic meters for Russian gas last year, higher than the amount the Germans, French, Italians and Czechs paid. Industry experts reckon PGNiG is currently paying more than $500/1,000 cu m. Part of the problem has always been that Poland lacks alternative sources for gas due to the limited capacity of its gas interconnectors. However, the capacity of the interconnector with Germany has been increased and a new one with the Czech Republic has been built in recent months.
In February PGNiG filed a suit against Gazprom Export at the Arbitration Court in Stockholm in a bid to index at least a part of the volumes under its contract to spot prices, to provide a double-digit percentage reduction in the amount it pays. PGNiG expects the case to be resolved by the end of the year.
Last month Gazprom's deputy chairman Alexander Medvedev said the two companies may be able to agree a discount before the arbitration court ruling, saying an agreement could be reached by the end of the EURO 2012 football championships co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine. The championships ended on July 1, and Budzanowski said those comments could be part of the Russian's negotiating tactics.
"Our response in this matter is clear enough. There is an arbitration procedure and our offer is there," Budzanowski said.
PGNiG sources more than 9 Bcm of its annual 14 Bcm gas sales from Gazprom, but its imports from Russia fell by 20% year-on-year in the first quarter as the company bought cheaper Russian gas at spot prices in Germany thanks to increased interconnector capacity.
