Poland's PGNiG signs first mid-term deal for LNG supplies from US

WARSAW (Reuters) — Poland's dominant gas firm PGNiG has signed its first mid-term deal for LNG deliveries from the United States, as part of a wider plan to cut its reliance on Russian supplies, it said on Tuesday.

State-run PGNiG said that as part of the deal, signed with Centrica LNG Co. Ltd, it will receive nine LNG shipments in 2018–2022. The company has not revealed the volumes and prices agreed under the contract.

The shipments will come from the Sabine Pass LNG export terminal in Louisiana in the United States and be delivered to Poland's LNG terminal at Swinoujscie on the Baltic Sea, which opened for commercial operations last year.

"This is most likely the first contract in a series. In one year and a half we want to build a portfolio of such contracts. It could be with the US, it could be from other directions," PGNiG Deputy Head Maciej Wozniak told a conference.

PGNiG received its first LNG from the US in June on the spot market, but US President Donald Trump's visit to Warsaw in July boosted its appetite for regular supplies.

PGNiG's sole LNG supply deal so far is with Qatargas, which in March agreed to double deliveries to Poland to 2 MMt (2.9 Bcm) per year until 2034.

PGNiG's plan is not to extend a long-term natural gas deal with Russia's Gazprom when it expires in 2022 and replace the supplies from the east with deliveries from Norway and via the LNG terminal.

Poland consumes around 16 Bcm of gas annually.

Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko, editing by David Evans and Adrian Croft

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