PGNiG holds back Gazprom

OPAL is a German North – South natural gas pipeline, which constitutes a prolongment of the land North Gas Pipeline (Nord Stream). It starts in Lubmin, near the Polish border, and runs along the Polish-German border in the direction of Czech Republic and Slovakia. The main shareholders are two German corporations: Wingas (80%) and E.ON Ruhrgas (20%).

The President of PGNiG, Piotr Woźniak, announced they succeeded in holding up an auction for additional powers for Gazprom in the OPAL gas pipeline until March next year. This means the Russians will not be able to use the pipeline which runs by our border. According to Woźniak, Dusseldorf court accepted Polish arguments and issued a suspending order. This means Gazprom will now be able to use only 50% of OPAL powers.

Last December, EU Justice Tribunal received a motion from the Polish government for the issue to be evaluated by the European Commission. Also at the beginning of December, PGNiG Supply&Trading (PGNiG’s subsidiary) filed to the EU Justice Tribunal a claim against the European Commission on exempting OPAL from the third energy package requirements (the package is a tool for completing the European energy policy goals; most of all, for supporting construction of a consolidated, competitive energy market for the entire European Union).

It is worth to pose a question here why the suspension is so important. OPAL, or Ostsee Pipeline Anbindungsleitung, has a diameter of 1400 mm and annually may transmit 35 billion m3 of gas. It is 470 km long and runs from over ten to several tens of kilometres off the Poland’s western border. In practice, if the suspension was removed, it would constitute a sort of gas barrier that could make it difficult for our country to import gas from sources other than Russian.