Dynamic duo in fuel partnership

Polish Oil and Gas Company (PGNiG) and fuel producer and distributor PKN Orlen, both listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, have struck a strategic partnership deal. Last week representatives of both companies signed a letter of intent for cooperation, which will see the firms conduct mutual projects in the fields of oil and gas extraction and the related logistics infrastructure.

Both companies are determined to find and extract oil outside of Poland, namely in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, the Middle East and North Africa. During a press conference, Cezary Filipowicz, vice president of PKN Orlen, stressed that this is the most important field of cooperation and the firms say they perfectly complement each other in this respect.

"Orlen is a company which mainly processes oil and it lacks the element of having its own deposits, hence the mutual potential is big," says Bartłomiej Pawlak, the vice president of PGNiG. "We, as PKN Orlen, expect to build as integrated a company as possible, while also having access to its own deposits," adds Filipowicz.

The duo also declared their intention to increase sales of compressed natural gas (CNG). In the future they might cooperate on a project to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) and build an LNG terminal in Poland. However, Filipowicz admits that it is too early for Orlen to take this decision.

A coordinating team for oil extraction should be in place by the end of the week. Bartłomiej Pawlak says: "Never before have our companies been so close to starting specific cooperation and have had so many arguments in favor of it." He adds that thanks to last year's IPO, PGNiG got a financial injection that could be spent on investments.