OREANDA-NEWS. The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Building of Denmark has given permission for the construction of offshore sections of the pipeline Baltic Pipe of the Polish gas transmission operator Gaz System and the Danish operator Energinet. The solution for Gaz System touches upon both sections which will be built along the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

“The decision is an important step for Baltic Pipe and is the final of the major permits for the project,” the report on the company’s website says. The start of construction work is scheduled for December 2019.

Gaz System and Energinet made an investment decision on the construction of the Baltic Pipe in November 2018. This gas pipeline should go from the Norwegian sector of the North Sea east to Denmark, and then cross its territory and reach Poland through the Baltic Sea. The essence of the project is that the Poles have the opportunity to buy Norwegian gas, and Denmark will receive payments for transit. The construction cost is estimated at 1.8–2.4 billion US dollars. The gas pipeline is planned to be commissioned by October 1, 2022, when Poland’s contract with Russian company Gazprom will expire.

In August 2019, it became known that Poland reduced its purchases from Gazprom in the first half of the year by 28 %, to 4.3 billion cubic meters. Warsaw announced its intention to increase purchases of American liquefied natural gas, since it costs much less than fuel from Russia. After the expiration of contact with Gazprom in 2022, Poland is going to refuse Russian gas and replace it with supplies from Qatar and the United States of America.