The Polish government has decided the country needs to build one or two
nuclear power plants, increase gas storage and output, and speed up the
construction of liquified natural gas terminal in response to the gas crisis in
Europe, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.
Tusk told a news briefing that state-owned power group Polska Grupa
Energetyczna will be responsible for building nuclear capacity, while local gas
monopoly Polskie Gornictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo (PGN.WA) will be asked to
increase gas storage capacity to 4 billion cubic meters from 1.7 bcm.
He said French companies were the most likely prospective partners for the
investment in the nuclear capacity.
Tusk also said a contract to buy LNG with a supplier from Qatar
will be signed soon.
Poland's
previous government initiated the LNG terminal project in 2006 but the project
has been stalled largely due to environment protection requirements.
Treasury Minister Aleksander Grad, also present at the news briefing, said that
legal changes to the current procedures, would ensure the terminal would be
built by 2013.
Tusk said that a radical increase in gas storage capacity would allow Poland
to increase its own energy security but also serve partners from European Union
once an energy solidarity policy is implemented.
Tusk said the Lubiatow-Miedzychod-Grotow gas mine, which will allow domestic
gas output to increase to 5.5 billion cubic meters a year from the current 4.3
bcm, will be completed by 2013.
Thanks to the fact that 30% of Polish gas use comes from domestic output, and
its location on transit pipelines from Belarus
to Western Europe, Poland
remained mostly unaffected by the halt in exports of Russian gas via Ukraine.
The government plans to increase capacity of the gas interconnector linking Poland
and Germany to
2 bcm a year from the current 0.9 bcm/year.
Gas interconnectors with Denmark,
Norway and the CzechRepublic to link Poland
with the planned Nabucco pipeline to ship Caspian gas to Europe
will also be analyzed, Tusk said.