Poland has been cut off from receiving gas from Gazprom. The Polish administration remained composed in the face of the crisis.
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| [Gas crisis in Poland] |
On the morning of April 27, Russia cut off the supply of natural gas to the Republic of Poland. Poland, along with all other EU nations with the exception of Hungary, has refused to comply with Russia's demand that gas supplies be paid for in rubles. Russia's move was met with a measure of restraint by the Polish government. The administration claims that it has foreseen Russia's "gas blackmail" and that it is prepared to deal with it.
As a result, Poland has done a better job than the rest of the EU in terms of preparing for Russia's use of the energy lever, as seen by the number of filling levels in the country's gas reservoirs: While the gas storage facilities in the EU as a whole are only little more than 30 percent filled, which is usual for this time of year, the filling level in Poland, according to Prime Minister Morawiecki, is 76 percent full. When it comes to energy supplies, Warsaw appears to have taken the warnings of a Russian attack on Ukraine more seriously than many other European countries, much like it did when it came to a possible wave of refugees from Ukraine – for which Poland began to prepare seriously weeks before the start of the war.
Polish officials have long advocated for a policy of diversifying the country's energy supply and distancing itself from Russia as a source of natural gas and crude oil. In its own words, Poland now has a number of alternatives to Russia's lack of natural gas supplies, including the use of European pipeline systems, the construction of the liquid gas terminal in Winoujcie, which was completed under the first PiS government from 2005 to 2007, a small domestic gas production capacity, and, beginning in the fall, the Baltic Pipe project, which is intended to provide Poland with a reliable supply of Norwegian natural gas. The supplies via the Yamal pipeline, which have already been halted, would have ended at the end of 2022 regardless of the situation.
A severe sanctions strategy against Russia is advocated by Poland, which also pushes for include the energy sector in this approach. With this in mind, the nation – which is still heavily reliant on the combustion of fossil fuels for its energy supply – hopes to have completely phased out all relevant imports from Russia by the end of 2022 at the latest. On March 30, a comparable bill was introduced in the Sejm, and it is expected to be implemented shortly. This is a difficult phase to complete: The Russian Federation now supplies Poland with 15 percent of its coal, 43 percent of its natural gas, and 73 percent of its crude oil, as well as large quantities of diesel and other fuels.
With the import or transit of hard coal from Russia or Ukraine to be prohibited as soon as feasible, substitution is anticipated to be particularly difficult in the case of coal, which is expected to be the most difficult to replace. The shortfall will be met by increasing domestic output as well as by importing more goods. However, an increase in local production is only expected to be in the region of 1 to 1.5 million tons per year, compared to the 8.3 million tons that Poland purchased from Russia in the previous calendar year.
In the oil sector, imports from Russia will be partially offset by purchases in Saudi Arabia, which will account for the majority of the offset. It has been a long time since a systematic approach of replacing Russian oil supply has been implemented. Orlen, a semi-state oil business, only has short-term supply contracts with Russia, which will expire in January 2023 and December 2024, respectively, according to the company's website. Following the conflict in Ukraine, the Ukrainian government has decided to stop these contracts by the end of 2022 as a result of the conflict.
Everything in Poland should, in the medium term, be geared at hastening the country's energy transition. Energy sovereignty will be enhanced by the rise of renewable energy sources, such as hydroelectric power, photovoltaics, and offshore wind turbines, which are expected to account for over half of total electricity output by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency. The coal-fired power plants, on the other hand, will most likely continue to operate for a longer period of time. Furthermore, nuclear power is expected to replace coal as the primary source of energy generation in the long run. In 2026, work on a nuclear power plant is expected to commence, with completion scheduled for 2032. There is now a bidding war between three vendors from the United States, France, and Korea for the contract to build Poland's first nuclear power station, which will be located on the Pomeranian Baltic Sea coast.
The author Dr Ernst Hillebrand is the office manager of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Warsaw.