The $2 billion Baltic Pipe is scheduled to start flowing Norwegian natural gas to Poland on Sept. 27, a government official said, marking a key step in Europe's drive toward energy independence from Russia. Poland's deputy infrastructure minister, Marek Grobarczyk, wrote on Twitter that work is continuing on the 560-mile (900-km) Baltic Pipe's compressor stations. He initially wrote that the project will be completed on Sept. 29, then he updated the date in a posting later the same day. "The good news is that Baltic Pipe will be ready in the near future. But the better news is that [it will be] even two days faster than I presented it this morning," Grobarczyk wrote. "Work is underway to prepare, above all, the compressor stations, which are to deliver nearly 10 billion cubic meters [353 billion cubic feet of] gas," he wrote. "Together with LNG [liquefied natural gas] in Swinoujscie and own extraction, it gives 100% energy security" for Poland. The Swinoujscie LNG terminal, operated by a unit of Gaz-System, opened in late 2015 with a regasification capacity of 177 Bcf/a (5 billion cubic meters per annum [Bcm/a]). It will have a capacity of 247 Bcf/a (7.5 Bcm/a) after completion of an ongoing expansion next year, enough to satisfy roughly half of Poland's natural gas demand.
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