Poland’s LNG imports via the Swinoujscie terminal rose 57 percent in 2022 when compared to the year before, boosted by shipments from the US, according to PKN Orlen.
PKN Orlen completed on November 2 its merger with Poland’s dominant gas firm, PGNiG, which is in charge for all of the LNG supplies coming to the Swinoujscie facility, operated by Gaz-System.
The Swinoujscie LNG terminal received its first commercial cargo in June 2016. Prior to that it also received two commissioning LNG cargoes.
Poland’s LNG imports surged last year as Poland and other European countries replace Russian pipeline gas supplies with LNG and boost energy security.
The growth of LNG imports was possible due to the expansion of Gaz System’s facility in Swinoujscie, where PKN Orlen booked a regasification capacity of 6.2 bcm per annum since last year. This is some 1.2 bcm more than before.
Thanks to further investments, the capacity will increase to 8.3 bcm of gas per year in 2024 and PKN Orlen booked all of these volumes as well.
58 LNG carriers
PKN Orlen said in a statement on Wednesday that the Swinoujscie facility had received record 58 LNG carriers in 2022, 23 carriers more than in the year before.
The total volume of deliveries to Swinoujscie amounted to 4.4 million tonnes of LNG, an increase of 57 percent year-on-year, the firm said.
Last year, the largest number of deliveries, or 36, came from the United States, followed by Qatar with 18 ships.
In addition, PKN Orlen also imported LNG from Nigeria (two deliveries), as well as from Trinidad and Tobago and Egypt (one delivery each).
Besides the Swinoujscie facility, PGNiG started using KN’s FSRU-based facility in Lithuaniia’s Klaipeda in May last year with the first LNG cargo from the US.
The Polish firm also booked capacity at the Klaipeda facility for a period of six years.
PKN Orlen said that it had received eight LNG cargoes via Klaipeda last year with the volumes reaching about half a million tonnes of LNG.
Following regasification, most of this gas was sent to Poland via the new Poland-Lithuania gas pipeline, further strengthening the security of supplies for domestic customers.
The remaining part went to the markets of the Baltic states, PKN Orlen said.
High LNG imports to continue
PKN Orlen said it intends to maintain the high rate of LNG deliveries in 2023 as well.
The firm said that US would remain the dominant LNG supplier to Poland in 2023 due to two long-term contracts the company has with Cheniere and Venture Global LNG with a total volume of almost 3 million tonnes of LNG per year.
PKN Orlen said that the agreement with Cheniere entered into force in 2019 but from this year the volume of gas supplied under it would reach 1.45 million tonnes per year, which corresponds to approximately 2 bcm of gas.
The implementation of the contract with Venture Global LNG would also start this year, it added.