Gov't looks to Norway for gas and investigates old gas supply projects

"We will build the terminal in order to become less dependent on the Russian supplies," said Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz. Apart from that, the government wants to increase gas extraction from domestic sources and to expand the stores of gas. Marcinkiewicz emphasized that the diversification of gas supplies is now the government's priority. According to him, the government is in talks with gas suppliers from the north and east other than Russia. Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro also wants to prosecute Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) deputies, who did not sign the contract for the gas supply from Norway. "We will have an investigation concerning the case," he said yesterday. The Norwegian contract assumed the construction of a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, which would have provided Poland with 5 billion cubic meters of gas a year. SLD deputies Leszek Miller and Wiesław Kaczmarek believed that the contract would have been unfavorable for Poland. (Puls Biznesu, p. 4, Rzeczpospolita, pp. A1,B1) A.F.