Long-term 25-year contract between Gazprom and Poland for pumping gas through this route expired on 17 may and the Polish side refused to extend further decided to allocate pipeline capacity through a system of daily auctions.
In the period of record reduction in gas prices, the auction system will allow “Gazprom” to minimize the cost of transportation using pipeline capacity already contracted volumes of “blue fuel”. It will also allow the Russian company to reallocate export flows to more profitable routes, primarily the Nord stream, the download which in may has grown to an extreme level – an average of slightly less than 200 million cubic meters per day. In fact, now the gas pipeline “Yamal-Europe” can be used as a cost effective route to control the volume of gas export to Europe.
According to experts, the flow of gas along the route “Yamal-Europe” is paused on the background of the oversupply of gas on the European market. After some time, she will be resumed, since it is already known that on June booked 94% of the capacity of the pipeline.
For the third quarter of 2020, the period of seasonal growth of demand for natural gas before winter, the capacity of the “Yamal-Europe” is reserved at 80%. Polish company Gaz System does not disclose the names of the winners of the auctions, but, according to experts, only their party was “Gazprom”.
