Abstract
In mid-March 2009, Poland was reported to be making concessions in
negotiations to restore normal gas
supplies from Russia. Russian gas
supplies to Poland had fallen below contractual levels since the
Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute at the beginning of the year. In a bid to
restore normal supplies, Polish
officials said they were prepared to
renegotiate the terms of a 1993 bilateral agreement on gas transit.
Reuters news agency said the Warsaw government would have preferred for the
issues to be resolved on a
company-to-company basis between its dominant
gas distributor, Polskie Górnictwo Naftowe i
Gazownictwo (PGNiG), and
Russia' s state monopoly supplier, Gazprom. However, it had accepted that
the matter of gas transit would have to be dealt with on a
government-to-government basis. Reuters
quoted Poland' s deputy economy
minister, Marcin Korolec, who said after a meeting of a bilateral
commission that ' the protocol includes a point which says that Poland and the
Russian Federation pledge
to start talks focusing on an intergovernmental
gas supply agreement as soon as possible' . In the first
week of March,
PGNiG said it was receiving only 78% of contracted gas from Russia through the
Yamal
pipeline that enters the country via Belarus. Poland imports around
66% of its total gas consumption.
In our newly released Poland Freight
Transport Report, BMI concludes that oil and gas pipeline
throughput will
grow by an average of 2.2% per annum in 2009-2013, reflecting a sharp drop in
Russian
throughput in 2009. There will be something of a transition period
as Poland seeks to diversify its oil and
gas supplies away from excessive
dependence on Russia. Various factors underpin our forecast. While
there
is a high degree of volatility in what could be called ' pipeline geopolitics' ,
we think that it remains
in Warsaw' s long-term interest to strike a deal
with Russia, on the one hand, while diversifying
pragmatically on the
other. Poland' s own economy is expected to grow at an average of 2.3% a year
over
the next five years, providing a base line of energy demand that will
also contribute to pipeline usage.
Our overall forecast for freight
carried in Poland has been affected by the current recession. The
transport
sector also has to play catch-up, given infrastructure
limitations in road and rail. We expect annual
average growth in freight
carried across all modes, measured in million tonne km (mntkm), of 3.3%
during the forecast period of 2009-2013. We see the best performers sector
being airfreight and sea cargo,
with annual average growth of 3.8% and
3.6% respectively. Positive fundamentals for airfreight have
been somewhat
overshadowed by the impact of high fuel prices and the subsequent downturn in
the
global aviation cycle. Plans to privatise Poland' s troubled national
carrier, LOT Polish Airlines, may
eventually attract new investment. In
maritime freight we are forecasting that new investment in Gdansk
port
will eventually feed through. Road haulage will grow by 3.3% per annum. Here,
finally, rail freight
will grow by an annual average of 2.7%, as the
processes of reform and deregulation gradually begin to
take hold.
Poland has a composite score of 64.8 (out of a theoretical maximum of 100) in
our freight rating. The
country scores well on long-term political and
economic risk, and on the regulatory and competitive
environment. On the
other hand, freight transport growth and infrastructure are areas of
relative
weakness. BMI forecasts that the total value of transport and
communications GDP will rise to
US$49.5bn in nominal terms by 2013,
representing 8.4% of Poland' s GDP. The transport and
communications sector
employed 822,000 people, or 6.0% of the labour force, in 2008. We see that
figure
staying roughly constant to 2013.
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