“It has put us on the firing line,” responded Jozef, a 60-year-old taxi driver from the Polish coastal town of Szczewność.
Their city is home to Poland’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. Some people believe that with the help of this the country can achieve energy independence.
Many citizens like Joseph fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin may target the site.
By this year, Russia supplied 40 percent of the EU’s natural gas. However, after the February intervention in Ukraine, everyone in this part of Europe is worried about getting goods from Russia.
The danger was hard to imagine as we traveled along the narrow road between the pine trees along the coast. Industrial machinery lining the terminal’s path glistened in the sunlight.
But Poland is relying heavily on the port in the northwest Baltic to solve its energy problems.
The Lukh Kajinsky terminal is crucial as an alternative to Russian gas. Gazprom, the state-owned Russian energy company, stopped gas supplies to Poland in April.
Gas prices have risen across Europe in June. Germany has taken steps to limit gas supplies to consumers and Italy has joined the European countries that have made major cuts in Russian gas imports.
Plan to increase capacity in Central Europe
Meanwhile, at the Kajinski terminal, about half a kilometer offshore, workers are preparing the foundations of a concrete structure to accommodate a third cylinder.
In addition to Qatar and the US, LNG tankers arrive here from as far afield as Norway and sometimes Nigeria and Trinidad and Tobago.
When a Ukrainian worker here was asked if the project was on track, he replied, “It’s better than on track.”
Plans for the terminal were approved in 2016 and will cost around £625 million. Currently, 23 percent of Poland’s annual demand (21 billion cubic meters or BCM of gas) is received and regasified here.
Completion and expansion will add 7.5 bcm of gas per year by late 2023, and according to reports, the supply could go up to 10 bcm.
Like the rest of Europe, Poland is moving away from coal-fired power stations, but domestic gas consumption is growing rapidly. This is probably 30 BCM per annum and can provide heating facilities to about 9 million homes.
The LNG race
As we passed through the terminal we also came across German World War II bunkers surrounded by overgrown vegetation and behind a barbed wire barrier. “The Germans are building their terminal near the border,” says Joseph. But we will beat them.
Świnoujście is closer to Berlin than to Warsaw, the distance between the two being only 90 km, while its distance from Warsaw is 560 km. A pre-planned LNG terminal is being built near Wilhelmshaven in northern Germany, while two more are planned near Hamburg.
As for the Polish economy, locals have high hopes for it. Yet many jobs at the terminal are not for locals. In this regard, companies are hiring specialists from Poland and abroad.
Alexandra Wozniak is a receptionist at the modern Hotel Nouveau Millennium. A hotel is near the site of a new road and tunnel. He says that before the war, his electricity and gas bill was 70% less.
“It’s crazy,” she says. But maybe this terminal will help us. She previously spent 17 years in the British county of Devon where she worked at a TK Maxx store.
“We returned to Poland to be close to my family, but then suddenly Covid came and my mother-in-law died. And now the war is on.’ She says she now wants to return home to Britain with her husband, a chef, and four children.
“The old schwinn is disappearing,” she says with a smile. This is a construction site. Some older residents are not happy with the changes. Now it doesn’t look like a small town where tourism used to happen. But the work is going on.
For now, tourism remains a good source of income. The population of this small town is around 30 thousand but during summers around 300,000 tourists visit it.
Oscar, who works at a sporting goods store, has never visited the terminal. Tourists must go there for some reason. More tourists is good for business.
When customers come to the shop, they immediately start speaking Polish instead of English. And they talk to him in German without stopping. Oscar has said that energy bills and other commodity prices have risen over the past months and that the war has “made us realize how easy it is to cross the border.”
Trying to live without Russian gas
Poland is seeking to establish links with Lithuania, Ukraine, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to send additional gas to neighboring markets. In this way, a center will be established for gas needs in the region.
It is part of a strategy to reform Central Europe’s gas market to shift from east-west to north-south.
“Poland will play an important role in the EU’s efforts to phase out Russian gas imports and achieve the long-term goal of zero greenhouse gas emissions,” says Henning Glostein, director of energy, climate and resources at the Eurasia Group. Can be done.’
He says that the first priority is to get the exchange of 10 BCM gas imported from Russia to Poland. It will start with the political pipeline. It is expected to start at the end of this year.
“A combination of this pipeline and LNG imports can ensure supply,” Glostein said. In the long term, Poland will have to do more for energy reserves and reduce dependence on coal in a big way. If the target of zero emissions is to be set by 2050.
Slovakia and the Czech Republic have announced their support for the terminal. Slovakia is completely dependent on Russian gas. The government of the Czech Republic has said that it will invest in the expansion of the gas terminal in Švenosce.
Meanwhile, American company LNGE has offered to finance new gas infrastructure between Poland and Ukraine.
Anna Miklaska, associated with the Baker Institute of Public Policy at Rice University, thinks this could change Poland’s influence in central Europe. “Germany bet on Russian gas and now it has to ensure gas supply for today and tomorrow.” He did not know whether he should be so dependent on Russian gas.
“The policy of less dependence on coal and nuclear sources will increase the dependence on gas in the coming years.”
“The German plan to become a gas hub in Central and Eastern Europe is no longer realistic,” she says. On the other hand, Poland is on the same path and will need the help of its neighbors to the west, Germany and others.
‘Like a drop in a bucket’
In March, the Polish government gave an additional 540 million pounds to the terminal operator of Szówność. The terminal was included in the EU’s 2022 list of projects of common interest. He got the impression that the European Union supported the project. However, not everyone is satisfied with this.
According to former German and EU diplomat Ulrich Rothacher, who also wrote the book ‘Potnamics’, it was an exaggeration to say that Poland would be a gas hub in the region.
“The supplies reaching Shunivascha will be just a drop in the bucket,” he says. I am afraid that despite the good intentions, it has been delayed and will not make much difference.