During her speech at the Congress of Local Authorities of the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) which took place in Lublin on the 6th of June, Polish Environment Minister Anna Moskwa announced that Poland had decided to double the capacities of the natural liquefied gas terminal (LNG) of Gdańsk.

“Already in 2016, we showed that the key […] to energy security is to create a strong North-South common thread. This common thread is the LNG terminal which is already in operation” – she explained. 

“A lot of people were worried that they may run out of gas in their stoves if the [Russian] gas was turned off. Despite everything that has happened, we are safe in this regard” – she added. 

Since the launching of the „North-South common thread driven by the Three Seas Initiative” in 2015, Poland has insisted that it does exclusively focus on its own national interests, arguing that the interests of Poland’s Central European partners are also being taken into account when it comes to energy security. 

„We have planned it at 6 billion cubic meters per year […] Given the growing interest from our southern neighbours [the Czech Republic and Slovakia, – editor’s note], but also from Ukraine, we plan to expand the capacity of the FSRU [Floating Storage and Regasification Unit] terminal in the Gulf of Gdańsk to at least 12 billion cubic meters of gas” – Anna Moskwa explained. 

The Minister also announced that talks were already underway with Slovakia and the Czech Republic in order to „develop a possible model for these interconnections, but also to prepare the construction of interconnections with Ukraine„.

Image: AB Klaipėdos Nafta/Wikimedia Commons

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen