Europe’s energy crisis forced the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, to visit Nigeria recently in order to secure new gas and crude oil supplies to help his country maintain energy security.
“The first supplies of liquefied gas to the Polish gas port and the import of oil by Grupa Lotos S.A. to Poland have already taken place over the past years”, he told President Muhammadu Buhari, and affirmed that: “We would like to strengthen this cooperation. We would like to see increased supplies to our country from Nigeria in the future.”
It was the first official visit paid by any Polish president to Nigeria in 60 years since both countries established diplomatic relations in 1961. The Polish president confirmed that Nigeria is the only African country with which Poland has signed an agreement on strategic dialogue, explaining that a very good part of this strategic dialogue is the memorandum of cooperation in the area of agriculture and gas.
Indeed since the EU energy crisis, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expansion of Poland has slowed down to a periodically adjusted 4.5% Y/Y in the second quarter of the year after expanding 9.2% Y/Y in the preceding three months, the Central Statistical Office (GUS) said in a flash estimate on August 17, this year.
The reading signals, according to analysts, is that a much stronger than expected economic downturn is underway in Poland. With a significant 2.3% q/q drop in activity – the worst in the European Union – Poland is on the cusp of at least a technical recession.
Analysts believe that the drastic slowdown is owed to the lower contribution of change in inventories, as companies built stocks ahead of the economic crisis that is currently unfolding. Poland, reportedly with a population of over 38.4 million inhabitants, is the largest member of the European Union among all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
President Duda’s overtures toward Nigeria were not a one-off. Back in May this year, the Deputy Director-General of the European Union’s Energy Department, Matthew Baldwin, said the 27-country bloc needed additional gas supplies from Nigeria amid cuts from Russia, which before the EU sanctions provided around 40% of Europe’s gas needs.
“The EU imports 14 percent of its total LNG supplies from Nigeria and there is potential to more than double this,” Baldwin said. “If we can get up to beyond 80 percent, at that point, there might be additional LNG that could be available for spot cargoes to come to Europe.”
The Nigerian government seems to be working to meet the challenge of gas supplies to Europe. “We are positioning ourselves to be an alternative supplier to Europe”, says the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Minister Timpre Sylva, “We are already working with Algeria to build the Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline that is going to take over gas all the way to Europe.
“We are also having a partnership with Morocco to extend the West African Gas Pipeline to Morocco and across the Mediterranean to Europe. We believe that Europe needs this gas and it is a win-win for all of us and it is in their interest to reduce the discriminatory investments that their banks are doing.
”Observers say Europe is
to blame for its energy crisis with its green energy policies that starved the oil and gas industry of investment. Worries about the security of energy supplies were heightened when a leak in Poland on the Druzhba pipeline from Russia reportedly reduced the flow of oil to Germany.
Poland said the leak was probably caused by an accident.The Nord Stream gas link to Germany is now shut after a leak last month that both Russia and the West have blamed on sabotage, without identifying who was behind it. But many believe that leaks in the two Nord Stream pipelines running under the Baltic Sea were an act of terrorism to deprive people of cheap energy.
Poland is firmly in the race to keep its energy crisis from turning into an economic meltdown and considers Nigeria key to its salvation. Said the Polish president, ‘’Nigeria being rich in gas, will ensure a steady increase of supply of LNG gas and oil to Poland and the European Union. ‘’
Bello is a public policy analyst
