## Pipeline Diplomacy

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**Canonical URL:** [Pipeline Diplomacy](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/december/trenches.pdf)

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- [Markdown version](/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/december/trenches.pdf.md)
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### Background and motivation
- Piotr Naimski organized aid for workers in Communist Poland and warned early against dependence on Russian natural gas.
- After the Soviet Union's dissolution in December 1991, Russian gas supplies to Poland fell; supplies resumed by mid-January but the episode motivated diversification.
- Naimski: Russians "decided on this plan to 'replace tanks with pipelines.'"

### Baltic Pipe and Poland’s energy security
- Baltic Pipe capacity: 10 billion cubic meters per year.
- This capacity is "about half of Polish demand" and will "replace 100 percent of Russian deliveries."
- Combined with an operational LNG terminal and interconnectors with Lithuania and Slovakia, Poland aims to be "free of Russia’s hostile gas maneuvers."

### Energy crisis outlook
- Naimski assesses the current crisis as comparable in depth to the crisis in the ’70s.
- Timing: "The crisis will be longer than just one winter. This will go for the next two, three years."
- Implication: need for new plans, commissioning of investments, and diversification of gas supplies and energy policies in Europe.

### Coal, renewables, and transition tempo
- Current role of coal in Poland: "about 70 percent of its electricity."
- Transition timeline: "We still have coal as a necessity for the next 20, 30 years."
- Policy stance: phase out coal "very carefully," maintaining security of energy supply.
- Technology view: chemical processing of coal toward liquid fuels and other uses may become effective over time.
- Naimski: "As we phase out coal, we need base-load production of energy just to balance renewables. Because renewables themselves are not enough."

### Nuclear energy plans and targets
- First operational nuclear unit in Poland expected "by 2033."
- Longer-term plan: "In 20 years we would like to have six of them."
- By the "mid-’40s," nuclear expected to provide "about a quarter of our energy from nuclear."
- Target: "Twenty-five percent of baseload production would allow us to include much more renewable energy in the mix."
- Political context: no major domestic dispute over nuclear energy despite deep political divisions in Poland.

### Decarbonization and energy security trade-offs
- EU decarbonization strategy ("net-zero carbon emissions by 2050") "probably will be discussed once again" and "This is possible and probably necessary."
- Suggestion: introduce amendments and "some commonsense approach" to the strategy.
- Naimski: security of supplies "could be on a necessary level and smoothly follow this decarbonization path," but caution that "We shouldn’t phase out coal too fast."

### Regional infrastructure and north–south connectivity
- Existing pipeline orientation: "Most existing gas pipelines run east to west."
- Rationale for north–south pipelines: to diversify sources and transport routes independent of Russia-dependent networks.
- Examples: pipeline interconnector between Poland and Slovakia; Slovak interconnection with Hungary and planned link to Romania; concept linking Świnoujście with Krk Island underpins north–south strategy.
- Baltic Pipe is characterized as "part of this new possibility."

*trenches*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/december/trenches.pdf_