Warsaw, April 26, 2022 – Stop al Russian gas in Poland. The news is reported by the Polish site Onet, taken up by TASS, which cites unofficial government and energy sector sources in Warsaw. Based on the Yamal contract, signed by the two countries in 1996, Moscow would have suspended supplies to Poland. The indiscretion on the gas block has not yet been officially confirmed, but Onet points out that “the Russians have not informed the Polish side of the reasons for the stop to supplies”.
The site reports that a crisis team immediately gathered at the Polish Ministry of Climate to address the case. That would be a signal, more of a rudeness than a real attempt to blow the Warsaw bank: last September the Polish government’s commissioner for strategic energy infrastructures, Piotr Naimski, declared that Poland would no longer need gas supplies russo via the Yamal pipeline starting in October 2022, given the start of North Sea gas deliveries through the new Baltic pipeline. “The Russian contract will expire next year – he said – and we will not extend it”.
In recent weeks, fears of a gas suspension to Europe had intensified, but Gazprom had always provided reassurance to this effect, claiming that natural gas was being sent via Ukraine to Europe “in accordance with the demands of European consumers”.
An alarm bell rang around April 20, when Gazprom did not reserve transit capacity for exports through the Yamal-Europe pipeline for the month of May. The transit of Russian gas had decreased significantly on 8 April. But the Russian gas giant, even on that occasion, had provided reassurance without booking the Polish transit capacity of Yamal-Europa from 8 April. Since the previous day, the pipeline has operated in reverse mode, pumping gas from Germany to Poland.