Comment of the President of the Management Board
The European Green Deal objectives clearly set the direction for the next 30 years, which is achieving climate neutrality. This means that natural gas will need to be replaced with ‘green’ gas such as biomethane or renewables-based hydrogen. Therefore, while specialing in gas fuels, we seek to develop our capabilities in alternative fuels.
The EU’s climate policy is an opportunity for PGNiG to grow and play a major role in decarbonising the entire Polish economy using natural gas as a transition fuel and hydrogen and biomethane as target fuels of the future.
A key goal is to expand our product portfolio. Hence our increased involvement in developing Poland’s biomethane market, whose potential we estimate at 7-8 bcm. In the near future, state-of-the-art plants will produce biomethane using agricultural and waste substrates and residues from the processing industry. Biomethane will supplement natural gas in heat and electricity generation and after being compressed, for instance as bioCNG, it will become a green fuel for vehicles.
We also want to have a key role in integrating and consolidating the heat generation industry. We are already the second-largest player on the heat market in Poland through PGNiG TERMIKA, actively looking for opportunities to further grow our position. At the same time, we are committed to investing in projects that will allow us to increase the use of natural gas in the acquired heat plants. This will not only produce larger synergies between those assets and the Group as a whole, but will bring the solutions applied in the plants into compliance the EU requirements. Currently, the heating market is largely based on coal. Given the EU climate policy referred to above, it is set to undergo a strong transformation in the coming years. Our profile as a company active on the gas market may prove very helpful in this process. We believe gas to be the fuel that will facilitate transformation of the entire economy. This means that most of the heat plants and combined heat and power plants will transition to gas over the next years.
Our priority in this process is to ensure stable supplies of natural gas which, as a transition fuel, will mark an important step in advancing the low-carbon transition of Poland’s economy. The next step is to reduce the emission intensity ratio of our own operations and to support the development of the alternative fuel market. Achieving this goal will require investments and additional spending on research and development. Forming a single multi-utility group with PKN ORLEN and Grupa LOTOS will allow us to effectively face up to the challenges of today’s world.