Moscow and Warsaw plan to sign a new transit contract to supply 28 billion cubic meters of Russian gas per annum through the Polish stretch of the Yamal-Europe pipeline from 2020 to 2045, the Russian government said on Wednesday.
"The parties will seek to ensure that the relevant economic entities of Russia and Poland sign within the shortest possible period a new contract on natural gas transportation to Poland in 2020-2045 amounting to about 28 bcm," the government said.
Two state monopolies, Gazprom and Polskie Gornictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo SA, or PGNiG, will increase stakes in EuRoPol Gaz, a Russian-Polish joint venture operating the Polish sector of the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which carries gas from the Yamal peninsula to Europe, to 50 percent each.
The new agreement says that EuRoPol Gaz will pass the technical operation of the Polish stretch of the Yamal-Europe pipeline to Polish state-owned Gaz-System, while Gazprom and PGNiG will not be able to include new participants in the capital of EuRoPol Gaz.
In early November, Russia and Poland ended a four-year energy dispute, signing a new gas supplies and transit agreement, which says that Russia will increase supplies to 11 bcm in 2012 and until 2022 from 9.7 bcm in 2010. The transit tariff will be set by EuRoPolGaz. The transit agreement runs until 2019 as in the previous contract, but the parties agreed on a possible extension of delivery and transit contracts.
The row between Poland and Gazprom started in 2006, when Warsaw wanted to increase the transit tariff on its stretch of the Yamal-Europe pipeline to $2.00 from $1.94 per 1,000 cubic meters per 100 kilometers. Gazprom insisted on a rate set by an intergovernmental agreement and filed a suit against Poland, which it won in 2008.
MOSCOW, November 10 (RIA Novosti)
