Poland’s prime minister has said the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline project to bring Norwegian gas to Poland is planned to launch in the autumn according to plan and on budget.
Speaking on a local radio station on Monday, Mateusz Morawiecki said the first Norwegian gas would flow to Poland this year.
Baltic Pipe is a Polish-Danish strategic gas infrastructure project that will allow the transport of gas from the Norwegian shelf in the North Sea to Poland and will be operational in October 2022.
Morawiecki said the pipeline project was key to Polish energy security.
“Today, Putin is blackmailing the whole of Europe: Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, limiting gas deliveries in a brutal way… We do not have such a dependency on Russia – for the first time since we started to buy gas. That’s why the Law and Justice government started construction of the Baltic pipeline six years ago. And we plan to open the pipeline in the autumn of this year. And we will open this pipeline in the autumn of this year, according to plan and in line with the budget.”
The prime minister went on to say, “Norwegian gas will flow this year, which will make us independent from Russia,” adding that the flow would increase next year and that national oil and gas firm PGNiG had contracted the purchase of Norwegian gas.