Poland and Baltics Seek to Form Gas Alliance
Warsaw and the Baltic states are examining how to join forces in order to counterbalance Russian gas domination.
Prime Ministers of Poland and neighboring Lithuania met in Warsaw on Tuesday to confirm their common interest in linking Polish and Lithuanian gas transport systems.
According to media reports, PMs Donald Tusk and Algirdas Butkevičius announced that both countries would jointly turn to the European Union to ask for financial support for pipeline connections as a strategic project.
“The pipeline is a recipe for the isolation of the whole region” Polish Prime Minister Tusk said, adding that this isolation “applies to the north-eastern part of the Polish, not only Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia."
The new head of the Lithuanian government said that to solve infrastructure problems the cooperation of the four countries is needed.
Lithuania is fully dependent on Russian gas, received via a pipeline through Belarus. Poland imports two thirds of gas from Russia.
The foreign minister of Poland visited Latvia on Wednesday to discuss extending the cooperation to another Baltic state. Radoslaw Sikorski met his counterpart Edgars Rinkevics and the PM of Latvia Valdis Dombrovskis.
According to the Polish Press Agency, the head of Polish diplomacy noted that Latvia had huge gas storage facilities. Radoslaw Sikorski underlined that Poland would soon have its first gas import facility and warned that there might be no room for two import terminals, in Poland and Lithuania.
Earlier in Warsaw, Algirdas Butkevičius repeated that the first Lithuanian LNG terminal was to be operational in 2014.
The same year first ships are expected in the Polish Gazoport in Swinoujscie.
The Lithuanian LNG project is to be based on the FSRU or Floating Storage and Regasification Unit, anchored in Klaipeda and allowing to import up to 3bcm of gas per year.
Polish LNG terminal is initially to import up to 5 bcm of gas per year.
A feasibility study is still conducted in connection to the gas pipeline linking Poland and Lithuania.
A year ago Polish gas transmission system operator Gaz-System and gas utility Lietuvos Dujos announced that the 562 kms, 2.3 bcm per year gas link estimated cost could exceed EUR 470 million.
Speaking to the Lithuanian media, Algirdas Bitkievicius also confirmed that his government supports shale gas development in the country.
“Poland has wells even in the most picturesque places to do prospecting” – the Lithuanian Tribune quotes the PM as saying.
The Lithuanian unit of Chevron has applied for a license to explore for shale hydrocarbons in a tender which closed last month. The government has not taken a decision on the license for drilling in Siluta Taurage field.
According to different estimates, Lithuania can hold 30bcm -120bcm of recoverable shale gas reserves.