Bloomberg: Poland Seeks to Free Region From Gazprom Yoke With Gas Pipelines

Poland seeks to help eastern Europe cut its reliance on natural gas from Russia’s OAO Gazprom by allowing its neighbors to use its pipelines and a sea terminal to access alternative supplies.

Poland for the first time got more gas from western Europe than from Gazprom for two days this month, proving that it can already diversify its own supplies, Jan Chadam, chief executive officer of state-owned Gaz-System SA, said Monday in an interview. New infrastructure by 2018 will allow the Warsaw-based pipeline operator to transport gas to a region that uses almost a quarter of the European Union’s total, he said.

Europe is seeking to diversify gas supplies away from Russia after they became more expensive than traded gas in western Europe. Flows from the east were threatened for a third winter since 2006 because of the conflict in Ukraine, which transports about 40 percent of Gazprom’s exports to Europe.
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