WARSAW — Poland's rising demand for gas and lack of a competitive market for the fuel may be obstacles for the country to negotiate lower prices from Gazprom, Rzeczpospolita reported.
Gazprom has agreed to apply a new pricing mechanism in contracts with those countries that have "liquid and competitive markets," deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev said in an interview, the newspaper reported. "Such a situation exists in Germany, but there the market has a different structure than in Poland."
Polskie Gornictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo, Poland's dominant gas company, has a right to negotiate the price for the fuel every three years under the current contract, and the rates have not changed since 2006, Rzeczpospolita reported. The company plans to meet Gazprom, which supplies Poland with more than 60 percent of its gas, to discuss the pricing formula, the newspaper reported, without citing anyone.
"We don't observe a decline in demand, but rather an increase" in Poland, Medvedev said, adding that Poland was Gazprom's fourth-largest buyer in Europe.
PGNiG could save $80 million a year applying the German-style pricing formula, the Warsaw-based newspaper reported, without saying where it got the estimates.