Poland plans floating terminal to boost LNG imports

Poland has decided to install a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal, in addition to expanding its current onshore LNG plant, a government official told an EU-US energy forum in Brussels on Thursday.

Piotr Naimski, secretary of state responsible for energy projects, said the Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) would have a capacity of 4 billion cubic metres (bcm), or 2.8 million tonnes, of LNG a year (mtpa) and be in place by 2025.

"The strategic approach will (enable us) to make this capacity twice as much, 8 bcm, and this will be connected with the Polish transmission system ... to go through interconnectors to our neighbours," he told the Brussels forum.

Poland built, and is now expanding, an LNG terminal in Swinoujscie on its Baltic coast and is constructing a pipeline to Norway for supplies that will replace Russian gas by 2022, when a long-term contract ends.

The FSRU, a large vessel that can be bought or hired, would be based at Gdansk harbour and join two other recent arrivals -- one on the Lithuanian coast and in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania.

Poland's gas demand is about 16 bcm a year, with more than half of that coming from Russia under the long-term contract with Gazprom.

With an expanded 7.5 bcm capacity at Swinoujscie, the 10 bcm pipeline to Norway and 4-8 bcm FSRU, Poland will have more than enough capacity to import all its gas needs form sources other than Russia.

The two terminals would make Poland a top European LNG importer alongside Spain and France, though numbers are difficult to compare because Europe buys far less than terminal capacities allow.