Polish Monopoly Boosts Q3 Gas Sales, Profits Fall

Polish oil and gas monopoly PGNiG recorded profit of zloty 1.63bn ($413mn) for its Q3 2016 business, down 25% year on year. Its Ebitda was down by a fifth, falling from zloty 5.31bn to zloty 4.27bn, with sales revenue down by 14%.

Upstream, it suffered from the 20% drop in the price of dated Brent; but downstream it gained from lower import gas prices that are linked to that contract. It is still expecting its arbitration case against Gazprom to be resolved around the middle of next year.

In the Trade and Storage segment, operating expenses were down mainly on lower market prices of hydrocarbons and lower costs of imported gas. Over the year to date, gas sale tariffs of PGNiG Obrot Detaliczny and PGNiG have been reduced a number of times and sales have risen by 0.5bn m³. Ukraine is also now a market for its gas, taking 250mn m³ in Q3 alone.

As well as LNG imports, the company is in talks on possible supplies of gas from the Norwegian Continental Shelf via the planned gas pipeline link between Norway/Denmark and Poland. Gas pipeline operators are expected to begin the open season procedure Q1 2017; earlier plans to build such a line failed to meet the market test however.

PGNiG holds 18 licences on the Norwegian Continental Shelf through its subsidiary, PGNiG Upstream International and it trades equity gas at the NetConnect Germany hub. This year the subsidiary secured four new licences. 

Poland's first LNG cargo arriving

(Credit: PGNiG)

In 2016, PGNiG Supply&Trading, which operates in Germany, won 40,000 new retail customers and increased its sales volume by more than 280m m³ (or 17%). At home, the Energy Regulatory Office has relieved gas wholesalers/traders and gas system operators – which is mainly PGNiG – from duty to submit tariffs for regulatory approval.

William Powell