Poland’s gas grid operator Gaz-System has selected its preferred route for the Baltic Pipe, a planned gas link to Norway, according to reports.

Piotr Naimski (left), the Polish government pointman’s on strategic energy infrastructure, and Gaz-System CEO Tomasz Stępień (right) give a news conference in Warsaw on Wednesday. Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymański

The Baltic Pipe is a planned new energy project to connect Poland with Norway via Denmark amid efforts to diversify gas supplies.

With the route named by Gaz-System, the pipeline would stretch for 275 kilometres under the Baltic Sea and go ashore at a site called Faxe South in Denmark and at Niechorze-Pogorzelica, north-west Poland, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported on Wednesday.

The selected route has been analysed and picked over other options after considering a range of environmental, technological and socio-economic factors, according to IAR.

Now it will be possible to start design work to choose the optimal way of laying the pipeline along the seabed, the news agency reported.

Once built, the Baltic Pipe will carry 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas to Poland annually, IAR said.

Construction work is scheduled to start in April 2020 and take about two years to complete, with the official launch of the new gas link planned for October 2022, the news agency reported.

A Polish government official said last month that the project would be completed on time.

"Everything is under control, we are following the schedule to the dot, with the completion deadline set for 2022," Piotr Naimski, the Polish government pointman’s on strategic energy infrastructure, said in late May.

The plan to build the pipeline is part of Warsaw’s efforts to diversify gas supplies and reduce the country’s dependence on Russia.

(gs/pk)

Source: IAR