Poland ready to guarantee Norway gas deal, but Danish gas could be here first

"We're interested in creating new transition pipelines through Poland from East to West and from North to South", announced Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek on Friday, during opening of the conference "Gas for Europe" in Warsaw. He said that in ten years time Poland will be looking to import 12.5 billion of cubic meters of natural gas from Russia, and 5 billion from Norway a year. In order to facilitate construction of a gas pipeline to Norway, Poland is ready to provide necessary state guarantees, said Economy Minister Janusz Steinhoff. In in the long term the government would like to find three more or less equally important gas sources. The third source could be found very soon, as Danish state gas and oil company Dong announced on the same day it was talking with Poland's gas monopoly Polish Gas and Oil Mining (PGNiG) on an eight-year natural gas supply deal. Dong's chief executive Soren Guldborg said that upon completion of a new $305 million pipeline in October 2003, two billion cubic meters of Danish natural gas could be carried annually. (Gazeta Wyborcza, Feb. 24-25, p.24; Reuters) M.K.