Pipeline Diplomacy

Source details

Piotr Naimski organized help for workers in Communist Poland and, after the fall of Communism, warned against dependence on Russian natural gas.
In January 1991, supplies of [Russian] gas "started to be lower and lower," prompting a special committee to evaluate which industrial installations should be cut off in case of necessity.
Naimski conceived a plan to find alternative energy sources as head of the bureau of state security in the early 1990s.
The Baltic Pipe was inaugurated in September 2022—months after Russia stopped deliveries to Poland. The interview was conducted in late August as Moscow prepared to cut gas flows to western Europe.

Baltic Pipe:
- Capacity: 10 billion cubic meters of capacity per year.
- Coverage: "about half of Polish demand" and will replace "100 percent of Russian deliveries."
Existing and complementary infrastructure:
- An operational LNG terminal is already in place.
- Recently commissioned interconnectors with Lithuania and Slovakia contribute to diversification.
North–south pipeline strategy:
- Emphasis on building north–south transmission links (Świnoujście to Krk Island concept) to diversify sources and transportation routes for central Europe.
- Specific projects: pipeline interconnection between Poland and Slovakia; Slovak interconnections with Hungary; planned link with the Romanian system.

Severity comparison: The crisis "will be as deep as the impact of the crisis in the ’70s."
Expected duration: "The crisis will be longer than just one winter. This will go for the next two, three years."
Required responses: introduction of new plans, commissioning new investments, diversification of gas supplies and energy policies across Europe.

Current role of coal: coal generates "about 70 percent of [Poland's] electricity."
Transition timeline: coal remains "a necessity for the next 20, 30 years."
Strategy: phase out coal "very carefully," maintaining energy security and baseload production to balance renewables.
Technological outlook: expectation that "technologies connected with chemical processing of coal toward liquid fuels and toward others" will become effective over time.

Timeline and targets:
- First operational nuclear unit expected by 2033.
- In 20 years, Poland aims to have six nuclear units.
- By the mid-’40s, about a quarter of Poland's energy will come from nuclear.
- "Twenty-five percent of baseload production would allow us to include much more renewable energy in the mix."
Politics: despite deep political divisions in Poland, "we don’t have a dispute over nuclear energy."

EU decarbonization target: The decarbonization strategy "accepted on the EU level probably will be discussed once again" and "could introduce some amendments" with a "commonsense approach."
Compatibility of security and decarbonization: Security of supplies "could be on a necessary level and smoothly follow this decarbonization path," but phasing out coal "shouldn't [be] ... too fast."
Single European energy strategy: Not feasible to have one plan for all European states given differing national situations; energy is "the responsibility of the member states’ governments" per European treaties, and the European Commission's push beyond treaties will prompt "hard discussions."

International Monetary Fund — F&D Magazine interview with Piotr Naimski, December 2022.

Pipeline Diplomacy
- Pipeline Diplomacy (Markdown version)
- Pipeline Diplomacy (PDF)