Polskie bezpieczeństwo energetyczne

The editorial staff of efi24.com asked experts whether the European Union’s agreement with Russia in the matter of early warnings about problems with natural gas deliveries would really increase Poland’s and Europe’s energy security.

Mirosław Obarski emphasized that the agreement in the matter of early warnings about problems with natural gas deliveries pertained to ad-hoc issues only.

“It protects the natural gas recipients against problems with infrastructure that needs to be prepared for reduced flow of natural gas or for abrupt discontinuation of its delivery, which could result in a system failure. This may improve management of inventories of this raw material significantly.

However, the actual energy security of the EU and Poland depends on something else, namely diversification of natural gas deliveries, especially taking into account the approach taken by Russia, which is using the natural gas scare to subordinate gas buyers. Additionally, in the current situation as a monopolist, it is able to dictate its own pricing terms. Moscow will definitely not want to change this situation because the sales of natural gas and oil are “to be or not to be” of its economy.

The pipeline laid on the bottom of the Baltic Sea will provide some security to the EU (but the natural gas will still be provided by the same supplier). For the time being, Poland has no official access to that natural gas, although Chancellor Merkel has recently outlined a plan for Poland’s use of those supplies.