By Patryk Wasilewski
WARSAW--Poland on Tuesday postponed the completion deadline for
the country's first liquefied natural gas terminal by six months,
dealing a setback to the country's energy-diversification efforts,
as the prime minister pledged support for the coal industry.
The terminal, now due for completion at the end of 2014, and the
development of Poland's shale gas deposits are important components
of the government's strategy to reduce the country's dependence on
natural gas imports from Russia and lower carbon dioxide
emissions.
However, Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Tuesday also pledged
strong support for coal as a source of energy in Poland. The
country's pro-coal policy has put central and eastern Europe's
biggest European Union member at loggerheads with Brussels.
"Energy independence...requires not only diversification of
energy sources, but most of all using domestic sources to the
maximum," Mr. Tusk said in a speech in Katowice, the heart of
Poland's coal mining industry.
"That's why we decided that renewable energy sources, a
necessary supplement for Polish energy, will be as limited as much
as is possible in Europe. [...] Hard coal, lignite and in the near
future shale gas will be key for us. This is the future of the
Polish energy sector."
To protect its coal-dependent and outdated energy utilities,
Poland has opposed EU efforts for greater reductions in pollution
limits in recent years.
The country's largest power station, the lignite-fired
Belachatow plant, tops the EU's list of the bloc's biggest single
producers of carbon emissions.
Many international utilities that rushed into Poland to build
renewable energy facilities, mainly wind farms, are now selling
those facilities to Polish state-controlled utilities amid
disillusionment about the future and profitability of renewable
energy in the country.
In June, DONG Energy Wind Power AS closed a deal to sell its
wind farms to PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna SA (PGE.WA) for 683
million zlotys ($212 million) following a similar disposal by
Spain's Iberdrola.
Write to Patryk Wasilewski at patryk.wasilewski@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
