Russia’s energy giant Gazprom on Wednesday suspended gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria after the two countries refused to pay in Russian roubles, officials have said.
Switzerland's Die Weltwoche said on Friday the Polish government had been warning for years that Russian President Vladimir Putin might one day be tempted to use gas supplies to Europe as a weapon, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Seven years ago, Poland launched a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in its northwestern port city of Świnoujście, the Swiss weekly magazine noted, according to PAP.
Today, this supply route meets almost a third of Poland's demand for natural gas, which stands at around 20 billion cubic metres per year, Die Weltwoche said.
It added that Poland also has its own natural gas deposits, which have been increasingly mined in recent years and now cover 20 percent of domestic demand.
Die Weltwoche also reported that the Baltic Pipe, a new pipeline to Poland from Norway via Denmark under the Baltic Sea, is scheduled for launch in October, just in time before the start of the winter season, to supply Poland with up to 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year, or about half of domestic demand.
Die Weltwoche said that Poland's gas storage was about 78 percent full, compared with an EU average of around 30 percent.
In addition, the Swiss magazine said Poland was building new pipelines to Germany, Lithuania and Slovakia to source gas from these neighbouring countries as an emergency option and to send gas there from its purchases elsewhere.
Soon, another LNG terminal will come on stream in the Baltic port city of Gdańsk, making Poland one of the largest exporters of natural gas in the EU, Die Weltwoche reported, as quoted by the PAP news agency.
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Source: PAP