Poland's Hopes for Special Discounts for US LNG are 'Absolute Nonsense'

The issue of liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies from the United States to Poland has been vividly discussed across Europe over the last couple of months. In an interview with Radio Sputnik, political expert Andrey Suzdaltsev noted that Warsaw hopes to become a hub of American gas in Europe and expects discounts from Washington for its loyalty.

However, according to Suzdaltsev, such a scenario is quite unlikely.

"Poland suddenly declared Russian gas — which it has purchased for decades — to be of poor quality. This is difficult to understand because Germany is happy with everything, but the Poles suddenly don't like the gas for some reasons. But the pipeline gas will always be the cheapest," the expert said.

"In this case they [the Poles] apparently want to become a hub of American gas and demonstrate to Europe that they are the closest to 'God.' The attitude of Eastern European and Central European elites indeed resembles a kind of enthusiastic, religious cult. They view any US actions as a solution to all their problems, and the Poles traditionally think that their exalted devotion will give them certain discounts — that they will receive gas at a lower price and then happily resell it. But, all this is absolute nonsense," Suzdaltsev added.

Earlier, Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said in an interview with RIA Novosti that a decision regarding LNG imports from the United States has not been taken yet, and the LNG price should be competitive to the gas prices from other countries, such as Qatar and Russia.

"It's not decided yet to import gas from the United States. A couple of months ago we received one or two tankers with liquid gas from the United States, it was a pilot technical project, just to prove that there is a technical possibility to import gas from the United States. It was a successful project, but now we are just waiting for the terms and conditions of the contract, future contract," Waszczykowski said.

At the same time, Polish President Andrzej Duda declared that the country could become a hub through which American LNG would enter Central and Eastern Europe. According to him, this issue was raised at the talks with US President Donald Trump in early July.