PGNiG making new demands of its industrial customers

Polish Oil and Gas (PGNiG) is currently verifying new contractual rules for industrial customers. Under the new rules, customers will have to forecast how much gas they will consume in 2004. PGNiG expects that the total amount should be between 2.2 billion and 2.3 billion cubic meters. "We will wait until the beginning of December for the orders. This will affect the amount of gas that we will have to buy as part of the Yamal contract," stressed Marek Kossowski, president of PGNiG. However, he added that next years contracts would have special clauses, including bank guarantees, ensuring that clients purchase the amount of gas that they order. Chemical companies are now preparing for talks with PGNiG and smaller businesses are afraid that they will not be able to reach an agreement. "In our case, the condition of presenting bank guarantees will result in us being eliminated from the list of PGNiG's clients," said Jerzy Majchrzak, president of ZCh Kędzierzyn. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 10) M.M.