Defence Policy
Swinoujscie Gas Terminal - Construction Works Officially Finalized
On Monday, the Świnoujscie gas terminal is going to be handed off, as it was stated by Andrzej Czerwinski, the Polish Minister of Treasury. Further part of the statement made by the Minister made it clear that a little bit later, between November and December, first methane carrier is going to come to Poland, in order to deliver the process-related LNG. The delivered gas is going to make it possible to prepare the infrastructure for commercial use.
“This constitutes the moment of handing-off the building for future use, meaning that the construction process regarding the gas terminal has been finalized. Now, all that is left to be done is related to fine-tuning the facility. This is a very important step, within the scope of the Polish energy security” - as it was stated by Minister, in his statement quoted by the Polish Press Agency. The official also informed that “(...) the construction works are 100% complete, all of the so called critical elements have been created and verified by the supervising engineer from Qatar (...) Now the facility is going to be launched, and this procedure is going to last for ca. 5 months” - the Minister of Treasury stated.
Czerwinski stressed the fact that the terminal will make it possible to limit the dependence on the Russian Gazprom company: “This investment is incredibly important from the point of view of energy security of Poland (...) Our country is going to gain 100% independence from the single supplier from the East. Not because of the fact that we are going to get such vast quantities of that liquid gas, but because of the fact that the gas terminal constitutes an element of wide investment programme which includes trans-border connections with Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Ukraine, and creation of a gas storage system with 3 billion cubic meters of capacity”.
The Minister also noted that the first two gas supplies for the Świnoujście terminal (between November and December and during the first quarter of 2016) are going to be process-related: “And after that initial batch of gas, the process-gas, goes through the terminal, the gas could be introduced into the industrial and distribution systems. This gas which will come to us now is not going to be burned in the gas flares, nor will it be spread without being used. It is, too, going to be gradually introduced into the distribution system. However, the true, automated distribution is going to start in the second quarter of the upcoming year.