Saint Petersburghosted today a meeting between Alexey Miller Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Janusz Piechocinski, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy of the Republic of Poland.

The meeting participants discussed the proposal put forward by the Russian party to implement the Yamal – Europe-2 project stipulating construction of a gas pipeline from the Belarusian border via Poland to Slovakia.

Alexey Miller informed the Polish party on the basic parameters of the gas pipeline and pointed out that this project would bring along an economic benefit to Poland from gas transit fees and strengthen energy security of consumers in Central Europe.

Background

In 2012 Gazprom supplied Poland with 9.94 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The contract on Russian gas supplies to Poland and the contract on Russian gas transit via Poland are effective until 2022 and 2019 respectively.

The transnational Yamal – Europe gas pipeline runs across four countries: Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany. Its design capacity equals 32.9 billion cubic meters, there are 14 compressor stations at the gas pipeline, the pipe diameter is 1,420 millimeters, the total length – over 2,000 kilometers.

The Polish section consists of a 684 kilometer linepipe and 5 compressor stations: Ciechanow, Szamotuly, Zambrow, Wloclawek, Kondratki. EuRoPol Gaz, a joint venture of Gazprom and Polish PGNiG owns the Polish pipeline section of the gas pipeline.

On April 3, 2013 Russian President Vladimir Putin tasked Gazprom to explore the possibility of implementing the Yamal –Europe2-project envisaging the construction of a gas pipeline from the Belarusian border via Poland to Slovakia for supplying Russian gas to consumers in the countries of Central Europe: Poland, Slovakia and Hungary.