“LNG imports are currently one of Poland’s key sources of natural gas supply, having satisfied about 40% of the country's demand since the beginning of 2022. With LNG, we can guarantee uninterrupted gas supply to our customers despite the energy crisis ongoing in Europe. This year we have arranged for almost 70% more LNG carriers to deliver cargoes to the Świnoujście terminal compared with the same period of 2021. This increase in the volume of deliveries demonstrates our competence in LNG trading. After our merger with PGNiG, we will consistently develop the gas company to support two strategic goals of the ORLEN Group: to ensure the country's energy security in the green transition process and to solidify the Group’s position on foreign markets,” said Daniel Obajtek, CEO and President of the PKN ORLEN Management Board.

On Sunday November 20th 2022, the Al Shamal tanker, carrying a cargo of about 90 thousand tonnes of LNG from Qatar, equivalent to about 120 million cubic metres of regasified natural gas, arrived at the President Lech Kaczyński LNG terminal. This was the 50th LNG shipment received at Świnoujście this year. In the same period of 2021, the number of LNG cargoes shipped to the Polish port was 30. This means that the rate of LNG deliveries handled by the Świnoujście terminal has increased by as much as two-thirds year on year.

The increase in deliveries is a response to the European energy crisis, which broke out more than a year ago triggered primarily by actions of Gazprom, until recently the main supplier of natural gas to the EU market, and by the military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. In late April this year, Gazprom cut off gas supplies to Poland in violation of the Yamal contract.

The increase in the number of LNG deliveries has been enabled by expansion of the terminal itself, which has a regasification capacity allowing it to handle 6.2 billion cubic metres of natural gas annually as from this year, up from the previous 5 billion. It is also a result of excellent cooperation between PGNiG of the ORLEN Group and GAZ-SYSTEM, the terminal’s operator.

The total volume of LNG cargoes delivered to Świnoujście year to date has exceeded 3.8 million tonnes. The vast majority of these deliveries, 31, arrived from the US.