Poland, Russia sign long-delayed gas agreement

WARSAW: Poland and Russia have signed a long-delayed deal that will increase imports of gas from Russia.

Friday's signing came after the European Union intervened to guarantee other countries will have access to the pipeline.

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin and his Polish counterpart, Waldemar Pawlak, signed the deal at a ceremony in Warsaw and praised it as good for both sides.

``This is a balanced agreement and creates conditions for stable deliveries of gas for industry, the economy and households,'' Pawlak said.

Sechin said Russia believes the deal will ``secure conditions for new projects for cooperation in the gas sector and in other areas of the economy.''

In recent months, officials at Poland's state gas monopoly warned that Poland could suffer gas shortages this winter if the deal wasn't signed by the end of October.

Under the deal, Poland's annual imports of Russian gas will rise from 265 billion cubic feet (7.5 billion cubic meters) to more than 318 billion cubic feet (9 billion cubic meters) from next year through 2022.

Some two-thirds of Poland's gas supplies come from Russia. The need for a new contract arose after Moscow eliminated Ukraine as the middleman in a price dispute that resulted in temporary gas delivery cuts to Poland and some other EU nations early in 2009.

The EU intervened to ensure that the Polish stretch of the pipeline will be operated by a Polish state company, Gaz System, that is independent of the pipeline's owners _ assuring access for other countries.