The gas export deal to Poland

Norway's biggest oil and gas group Statoil said yesterday that it was pulling the plug on a major natural gas export deal to Poland as the parties to the deal found there was no longer any need for the agreement. "Statoil and the state-owned Polish Oil and Gas Company (POGC) have found that no basis now exists for an earlier agreement covering substantial gas deliveries to Poland by the group," Statoil said in a statement. The original deal, signed in 2001, foresaw exports beginning in 2008 and reaching a plateau of five billion cubic metres a year from Norway with the likely construction of a new pipeline. As late as September, Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik had expressed hopes of salvaging the export deal after talks with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. Statoil said that it was now in talks with POGC on the possibility of reduced deliveries to Poland via other pipelines.